If you use your hand or not truly does not matter. What does matter is consistency. Always doing it the same letting the dog feel comfortable in a routine. I use the hand down but it's not to let the dog know it is looking in the right direction. That is more of my feet, my toes pointing exactly where I want the dog to go and my here/heel commands, ending with the word "good". When the hand goes down it's the que that the dog is about to be sent. And most important about putting the hand down put it far enough forward so the dog is able to see it. I see so many people put the hand down above the ears of the dog or even farther back. Don't know how the dog even seats it why bother?

 

Sure there was a thread on this ...long time ago ? (can't find it) ..even some Limey's pitched in with a farcical video clip , trying all that ''lining with the hand stuff" ..back in the day's when Chris A' was janitor . He even used a heeling stick ..anyway's ,don't matter a hoot ,if the dog want's to go and has learned to go ,then what ever it is locked on to in it's head ...I'm pretty sure you will get the dog going to where it thinks it should go ...............when you send it of course ..Where your hand is ,either left/right/on top or wherever ..is just what you done during that process...some dogs don't like what the handler likes to do . ??

 

Ken you have learned a lot since those many years back when I met you in Vermont throwing birds at a hunt test. We have traveled a long way.

 

Mostly I just like this picture. Do what you feel comfortable with.

 

View attachment 80512

This guy is a member here! He is the master when it comes to the mechanics of influencing the dog before the send..

 

He's one with whom I train with fairly regularly.

You've got to know him and his dog to know that picture.

 

It’s part of the behavior chain you build when training. You can use it or not. When trying to get a good initial line the amount of head movement and eye movement can be very slight and I think it’s a way to indicate that we’re ready to go. I work on lining quite a bit with blind drills and blinds where it is difficult to get the picture. I think the hand helps. But that’s how I train.

 

This is mildly off topic because this wasn’t the OP’s question. But I feel like this topic should be more addressed in the beginner videos. When I started... I am pretty sure I thought the hand was literally used as a “go this direction.”

I see newbies all the time putting their hand down and trying to point and make the dog look where their hand is pointing.

 

You do see people waving their hands around in front of the dog it get them to look a different way. It does not work that well and an indicator that they can’t communicate where they want the dog to look. An effective way is to practice push and pull using drills like the wagon wheel to influence the dog's head and body movements with consistent cues and commands. When the dog is looking at the right bumper, hand down and send. It is a fun drill and very useful for building and improving communication on the line.

 

Theoretically, it makes no sense to put something else into the dog's picture and interrupt it's focus. Practically - I'd love to know who first used the practice and why. I'd almost bet it was a tool developed for a particular purpose that has caught on and then become overused with time.

 

It does seem counterintuitive. I don’t put it in the dog’s face but in the edge of the field of vision. I find that watching the dog’s head, nose, and eyes tells a lot about where the dog wants to go and what they are looking at. It’s really a non verbal signal the dog is looking in the right direction.

 

My teaching was that it is a steadiness tool. Dog not allow to go without hand present. Me I don't use it never have. Just don't see the point especially the way many people use it.

Always have liked this picture. Like this guys sense of humor

 

On blinds (or marks) hand over head is just a Q that the dog is looking and lined correctly. Anyway that's what I and many others I train with do.

>>>"Consistency"<<<

This is what matters most IMO.

 

You can put your hand on your ass if you want but if you can’t read your dog at the line it doesn’t matter what you do with your hand. We look down at their head and we think he is looking at the mark and takes off for the butterfly. I have had opportunities to watch great pros and Amat handle their dogs they can really read them and can influence them to do the right thing. Hand or no hand.

 

The most important thing is have the dogs' body lined up properly and not just the head and eyes. I have even seen some pros line them up wrong and then they go where they are sent. Also, I hear people try to line them up saying NO. Talk about confusing the dog, listen to No, No, No on line. A great position to learn what not to do right is taking birds inline

 

Why is using "No" wrong? I do say “No” and my dog shifts his gaze. If it is still not correct, I say “No” again. It doesn’t take more than 1 or 2 “No’s” before he is gazing in the correct direction at which time I say “yessss… Goooodddd” . I’m always using a soft voice.

We’re fairly new at this and I hope my boy will learn that I “always” want him looking straight. The Dead Bird will always be straight ahead. Right now, other factors will catch his attention, so I use the above method.

For my dog, it seems to work better than shifting my knee or foot.

 

No is powerful and it can be hard to tell what the dog is thinking or looking at when you say No. I only use No if the dog is distracted or bugging on a blind or mark. Otherwise it’s just Here or Heel.

 

If I can tell my dog has focused on something off the line to a blind I will say "no" then heel or here. The tone, volume and way it is said conveys the intended meaning.

 

"No" can be tricky, depending what it's been conditioned to predict. My guys have no problem with hearing the word. They just change behavior when they hear it. Other dogs drop their ears and tuck tail because they've been conditioned to think a bomb is gonna drop on their hear.

The word itself tends to get overused and stuck into a lot of different situations where the handler is for some reason emotional.

You have to be very intentional and level headed to use it without creating a lot of problems for yourself.

 

Just to throw some research into the discussion. This is one of maybe 6-7 research articles I have read indicating most dogs respond better to gestures than verbal signals. One article even went so far as to test male vs. female dog response and apparently females tend to obey gestures/hand signals more than verbal signals.

This study is by the same authors who tested trained water rescue dogs in Italy by giving the dogs conflicting hand and verbal signals at the same time. (For instance, say "Down" but give a hand signal to "Sit". The dogs in this study followed the gesture/hand signal rather than the verbal command at about a 70 percent rate.)

As always, your mileage may vary and I don't really have a clue on the hand down thing.

TY - JOUR
AU - Scandurra, Anna
AU - Alterisio, Alessandra
AU - Aria, Massimo
AU - Vernese, Rosaria
AU - D’Aniello, Biagio
PY - 2017/11/13
SP -
N2 - The present study assessed how dogs weigh gestural versus verbal information communicated to them by humans in transitive actions. The dogs were trained by their owners to fetch an object under three conditions: a bimodal congruent condition characterized by using gestures and voices simultaneously; a unimodal gestural condition characterized by using only gestures; and a unimodal verbal condition characterized by using only voices. An additional condition, defined as a bimodal incongruent condition, was later added, in which the gesture contrasted with the verbal command, that is, the owner indicated an object while pronouncing the name of the other object visible to dogs. In the incongruent condition, seven out of nine dogs choose to follow the gestural indication and performed above chance, two were at chance, whereas none of the dogs followed the verbal cues above chance. The dogs, as a group, performed above chance the gestural command in 73.6% of cases. The analysis of latencies in the above-mentioned four conditions exhibited significant differences. The unimodal verbal and the gestural conditions recorded a slower performance than both the bimodal incongruent and congruent conditions. No statistical differences were observed between the unimodal and bimodal conditions. Our results demonstrate that dogs, trained to respond equally well to gestural and verbal commands, choose to follow the indication provided by the gestural command than the verbal one to a significant extent in transitive actions. Furthermore, the responses to bimodal conditions were found to be quicker than the unimodal ones.
T1 - Should I fetch one or the other? A study on dogs on the object choice in the bimodal contrasting paradigm
VL - 21
DO - 10.1007/s10071-017-1145-z
JO - Animal Cognition
ER -

 

In the 60's many were sending by swinging their left arm and stepping out forward with their left leg (99.9% of dogs were always sent from the left). In the 70's, as lining became more essential, the arm and leg stopped moving and the hand was still but usually in front of the nose. Over the years the hand has continued to move higher and further out of the dog;s direct line of sight.
Some consider the hand a focus aid some a control aid. I was first taught the arm and leg swinging but now only use a hand to send with young dogs to help teach them to hold their head still but once they have learned that heeling/lining involves not just spine and feet but also head and eyes I am no hands.

Tim
















9

 

In the 60's many were sending by swinging their left arm and stepping out forward with their left leg (99.9% of dogs were always sent from the left). In the 70's, as lining became more essential, the arm and leg stopped moving and the hand was still but usually in front of the nose. Over the years the hand has continued to move higher and further out of the dog;s direct line of sight.
Some consider the hand a focus aid some a control aid. I was first taught the arm and leg swinging but now only use a hand to send with young dogs to help teach them to hold their head still but once they have learned that heeling/lining involves not just spine and feet but also head and eyes I am no hands.

Dr. Carrion, my recon traces such "forward flailing" to the days that the pink (British Empire) spanned the globe and from "Brittania rules the, er, waves," their FT rules and "digital runes" evolved. Thus the semaphore system

the perfecting of which for British retriever trials can be pegged by my intel to one Basil Fawlty, proprietor and chief bottle washer slash semaphorean of Fawlty Towers, in Torquay, a coastal town on the English Riviera, which would have been the cradle of British field trials involving water, but like so many of Mr. Fawlty's highfalutin (but practical!) ideas, alas, came to naught.


MG

 

Hmmm.....bimodal incongruent, I’m familiar with that sometimes when dealing with my wife but I didn’t know what to call it, however, I do see it in trials especially watching newbies line up their dogs.

 

In that vein, I always loved watching the old films of trials like Straka’s ‘57 National AM and the “tomahawk “ seemed popular and I still see it occasionally and always think it’s a good example of learned behavior from said handler responding to no go’s.

 

I don't put a hand down with Smarty when running blinds. When she is locked on, wait til she says 'yes - let me go' (in dog language). It is about reading the dog at your side -

that said, I have been working with her for a couple of days on swinging with the gun in a 4 bumper half WW, in preparation for hrc tests. Since I am left handed, I naturally hold the gun over her head already. She has learned at least basically to swing her head with the gun without verbal cues in WW and can have her spine totally misaligned, but head looking where she should (and does) go.... (and yes much easier for her to understand with 20 yd WW white bumpers on short grass).

 

I don't put a hand down with Smarty when running blinds. When she is locked on, wait til she says 'yes - let me go' (in dog language). It is about reading the dog at your side -

that said, I have been working with her for a couple of days on swinging with the gun in a 4 bumper half WW, in preparation for hrc tests. Since I am left handed, I naturally hold the gun over her head already. She has learned at least basically to swing her head with the gun without verbal cues in WW and can have her spine totally misaligned, but head looking where she should (and does) go.... (and yes much easier for her to understand with 20 yd WW white bumpers on short grass).

I knew there was something funny about you:razz:
Swinging with the gun just one more thing that I never train for. Another one of those things they learn naturally starting back in formal OB. They learn to move with any body movement and once or twice out hunting and they learn the gun. Doing wagon wheel I don't see where you would need a gun. If taught ob and heeling well, and I am sure you do, the dog should move easily with you especially only doing a 4 bumper WW. If you want to train for HT and swinging with the gun just use it when throwing marks. But then again your are left handed and a female so you are kinda handicapped.:razz: Jes teasin!!!!!!
Just like the hand "what's the gun got to do with it". You got the words so put it to music and I'll split the royalties with you 60/40 of course cuz your left handed and female

 

I use my hand. I judge a fair amount - mostly in the Open - and I can't recall a pro that doesn't use his/her hand on blinds. That's not a justification, just an observation.

1. I use it as a cue to tell the dog that we are ready to launch.

2. It is a steadiness cue. I, as most handlers, will not send a dog on the last bird down in a marking test, without first putting my hand down. With the prevalence of interrupted marks in the All Age Stakes, I don't want the dog to go until the hand comes down, and my verbal cue is offered.

3. When I put my hand down, I typically don't withdraw it and shove it back in (I find it distracting to watch and think that the dogs must find it distracting also)

I put it in (typically above and forward of the eyebrows, and not over the nose, I want the dog to feel it more than see it), wait a few beats and let the dog settle in (when I judge I frequently see handlers - mostly amateurs - who shove their hand in - scream "back" - and almost startle the dog). I like for my blinds to have a steady rhythm to the them. What's more, I think the dogs like the rhythm.

4. If I have issues, I may use my hand to direct the dog's attention away from direction A to direction B.

I may use my hand to create focus when my dog is fuzzy (a more forceful - and forward - hand with a more forceful "here" to make the dog look where I want it to look).

I may change the position of my hand or use a subtle finger flick if I am looking to get a little "english" on the dog.

Using my hand to create focus or english doesn't happen often. It isn't my preferred mode of operation.

It's a tool in the tool box. But, it's one I consider indispensable

Ted

 

I use my hand. I judge a fair amount - mostly in the Open - and I can't recall a pro that doesn't use his/her hand on blinds. That's not a justification, just an observation.

1. I use it as a cue to tell the dog that we are ready to launch.

2. It is a steadiness cue. I, as most handlers, will not send a dog on the last bird down in a marking test, without first putting my hand down. With the prevalence of interrupted marks in the All Age Stakes, I don't want the dog to go until the hand comes down, and my verbal cue is offered.

3. When I put my hand down, I typically don't withdraw it and shove it back in (I find it distracting to watch and think that the dogs must find it distracting also)

I put it in (typically above and forward of the eyebrows, and not over the nose, I want the dog to feel it more than see it), wait a few beats and let the dog settle in (when I judge I frequently see handlers - mostly amateurs - who shove their hand in - scream "back" - and almost startle the dog). I like for my blinds to have a steady rhythm to the them. What's more, I think the dogs like the rhythm.

4. If I have issues, I may use my hand to direct the dog's attention away from direction A to direction B.

I may use my hand to create focus when my dog is fuzzy (a more forceful - and forward - hand with a more forceful "here" to make the dog look where I want it to look).

I may change the position of my hand or use a subtle finger flick if I am looking to get a little "english" on the dog.

Using my hand to create focus or english doesn't happen often. It isn't my preferred mode of operation.

It's a tool in the tool box. But, it's one I consider indispensable

Ted

Here's a man that knows how to use the hand.
I like the statement that he likes the dog to feel it more than see it. I have watched a bunch of people that use the hand but very few that do in correctly. A lot will put it down in the dogs face so much that it is distracting then throw it out there on the send like they are bowling. I have also observed the hand positioned as Ted describes back up over the brow so much that I thought what's the point of that, the dog cant even see it but I swear they do feel it and know it's there. Reading Teds description and watching others us it properly makes me want to try it but for me I put it in the same category as two sided heeling. I am just not comfortable with it. I have just developed my own way of communicating with the dog and the hand or two sided heeling just seems to complicate things for me and my dogs. The old saying that you cant teach an old dog new trick sometimes rings true. I am referring to me not the dog.
As I said I look at the hand the same as two sided heeling. If you haven't used it and trained with it consistently and gotten good with the proper use it is just best not to do it. I think it was Gooser that mentioned Teds communication as all most telepathic. I agree with this. I don't use the hand. Instead I use VERY subtle body movements and VERY light verbal cues and I swear they can feel what your asking as well as visual or audio cues.

 

IMHO, allowing them to move their body to "Reposition" or "swing with the gun" only encourages creeps..

 

IMO, this is a finesse thing. I would only use “Heel” or “Here” if I need to adjust his body. If I am at the line and his body/spine are straight, I may only need to finesse his eyes, or head. So for me, “Heel” and “Here” would not work.

I do understand that my body movement can be enough, and I will give some thought to changing. However, for my dog, he does understand the very soft “no” as meaning he needs to alter his focus. Hmmm – he does have confidence issues on blinds, so perhaps the “no”, even in a gentle voice, is having a negative effect….

In my very minimal experience, which includes working several HT’s, I have come to believe that the line of the spine is really not important. IMO, the dog goes where he is looking 100% of the time.

 

As you become more experienced you will learn how important the alignment of the spine is

 

A better drill for marking with the gun. Instead of a wagon wheel set up where the dog already knows the bumper is there. Have someone stand behind you, you point the gun, the person behind you, as silently as possible, throws the bumper in the diretion the gun is pointed. Does not have to be a far throw, look for accuracy. This way the dog learns to anticipate the mark, not just swing to a already known position. After the dog can do that well, transition to field marks with absolutely no indication in the field of a gun station. Focus on singles first with wide swings between marks, then ease into multiples.

 

I realize that if I were to continue this training on WW, I might develope an issue. I don't plan on it. I plan to use it in the short term (as in maybe 5 days or so). I will revert back to 'normal' WW and continue gun handling training in the field with single marks off of multiple guns - swinging from the old mark to the new mark.

I do appreciate the advice.