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How to evaluate dog's progress in training?

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Brent McDowell

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
I have a 9-month old BLM currently on a pro truck training for FT. He's my first run at the FT game (I came up through the duck hunting/HT ranks). He's progressing well at this point, but I have a question for the long time FTers on the board. What progress markers do you look for as you decide to either continue training or wash out a dog? I have no reason to believe that my pup isn't on track, I simply want to have an idea of the necessary hurdles to cross successfully in order to have a good AA dog in a couple of years. Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Brent
 
#2 ·
Brent , IMHO people have a tendency to try and compare one dogs progress compared to other dogs.If you go by that standard you may not give your dog and your pro a fair chance to mature together. If your ultimate goal is to have an AA as you stated, you have to give your dog time to develop..Some of the great all time FT dogs had a less than stellar Derby career, but when they hit the Qual and Open stakes they blossomed.

My advice would be to write your goals and benchmarks down with a date in mind i.e

1. I want my dog to win a derby stake by 18 months

2. I want my dog to be QAA by age 36 months

something to that effect and then present them to your pro and see if the two of you are on the same page. You also need to ask yourself ,has this pro produced an AA dog before, has this pro won, do you plan on running the dog yourself...

Now all that being said when you go and visit and handle the dog , Are you satisfied with the dog's progress ? After all you are paying the bills and he is your dog..Dont get caught up in the trap of others telling you your dog should be doing this or doing that at this age or that

Just my $ .02
 
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#3 ·
I would differ from what Bon has said.

When I evaluate how I and my dogs are doing, I look at the dog's performance, not at the ribbons the dogs' collect

For example,

Are the dogs good team players?
Are the dogs obedient on line?
Do the watch the birds down?
Do they take good lines to the birds?
When they get to the area of the fall, do they set up intelligent hunts?
Do the dogs demonstrate good decision making ability?
Do the dogs have good momentum on their blinds?
Do the dogs have good water attitude?
Are the dogs making improvement in their performance?

These are the things I look for in evaluating my dog. Not the ribbons I bring home.

Ted
 
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#4 ·
Ted Shih said:
I would differ from what Bon has said.

When I evaluate how I and my dogs are doing, I look at the dog's performance, not at the ribbons the dogs' collect

For example,

Are the dogs good team players?
Are the dogs obedient on line?
Do the watch the birds down?
Do they take good lines to the birds?
When they get to the area of the fall, do they set up intelligent hunts?
Do the dogs demonstrate good decision making ability?
Do the dogs have good momentum on their blinds?
Do the dogs have good water attitude?
Are the dogs making improvement in their performance?

These are the things I look for in evaluating my dog. Not the ribbons I bring home.

Ted
Click to expand...
The reality is if your dog is doing those things well, there will probably be ribbons involved.
 
#5 ·
junfan68 said:
The reality is if your dog is doing those things well, there will probably be ribbons involved.
Click to expand...
When your dogs do these things well, they finish.
When they finish, they place.
When they place, they win.

But, it all begins with the fundamental skills.

Look to the skills, not to the results of those skills.
 
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Discussion starter · #7 ·
Thanks much for the feedback. For what it's worth, I picked him up tonight for a weekend at home and Christmas card pictures. He's still allllllll puppy, so it's great to know he's still a kid at heart but is doing real work in the field when it's 'go' time. Just gotta remind them from time to time that they're not robots or machines...
 
#8 ·
Brent McDowell said:
I have a 9-month old BLM currently on a pro truck training for FT. He's my first run at the FT game (I came up through the duck hunting/HT ranks). He's progressing well at this point, but I have a question for the long time FTers on the board. What progress markers do you look for as you decide to either continue training or wash out a dog? I have no reason to believe that my pup isn't on track, I simply want to have an idea of the necessary hurdles to cross successfully in order to have a good AA dog in a couple of years. Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Brent
Click to expand...
Hi Brent,

We are kinda in the same boat trying to gauge our dogs. My first FT dog is with a pro right now and doing decent as far as his FT career, not a stellar record but I'm still hoping he would do better later on in his career.

Having said that, all I know is my dog have not met all the criterias mentioned above by Ted nor Bon, but I'm still hoping for the best for my pup. I guess I like the best advise of trusting your Pro if your pup is an AA material. Even so, it depends on how persistent and honest you are that your pup has the talent and trainability to play the game. You might have to try a couple of pros before saying it quit to your pup. It also help if you got a good support group and I think you came to the right place.

Angelo
 
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Discussion starter · #9 ·
Ted,

Thanks again for your response to my email last fall. After 7 more months of training and a derby JAM, here's where we are. I'm trying to refer back to this list every 3-4 months to see if things are changing. It's very helpful especially as we transition to the bigger dog work. Thanks,

BM

Ted Shih said:
I would differ from what Bon has said.

When I evaluate how I and my dogs are doing, I look at the dog's performance, not at the ribbons the dogs' collect

For example,

Are the dogs good team players? Yes
Are the dogs obedient on line? Yes
Do the watch the birds down? Yes
Do they take good lines to the birds? Generally, yes. This is improving week to week
When they get to the area of the fall, do they set up intelligent hunts? Same as the lines, sometimes better than others, but much better than a few months ago
Do the dogs demonstrate good decision making ability? Still a little early to get a read
Do the dogs have good momentum on their blinds? Getting better here as well
Do the dogs have good water attitude? Very good here, thankfully
Are the dogs making improvement in their performance?Generally, yes

These are the things I look for in evaluating my dog. Not the ribbons I bring home.

Ted
Click to expand...
 
#10 ·
I'm in the same boat Bret. My pup is 14 months old. We will be running our first derby the end of Sept. I'm basically using Ted's list also. I also compare my pup to my MH dog at the same age time frames and this pup is a millon times better. A lot can happen between now and Sept. though.
 
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Discussion starter · #12 ·
He's with a pro, and I do trust his judgement. He's put a number of FCs on dogs over the years, so he has the chops. That said, because I'm writing the checks and this is my first run at this, I want to make sure I'm as educated as possible.

"Trust but verify" - Ronald Reagan
 
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