Controlling the drop – 11th October 2008
We went up to the old racecourse for an hour today. I took two of the children with me and entertained them with a demonstration of the product of all this training. Grace had a blast and I dropped her and recalled her regularly. She was always compliant and seemed to revel in the fun of it all. I turned her on the whistle and sent her down various paths using handsignals – all good fun, and all useful practise. The bit that entertained the children the most though was the ’stalk’. I can’t really explain it in any other way. Grace was brought to heel and we would stop, then I would click my fingers and she would move forward, I would make a ’ssss’ sound and she would start to drop, half dropping, half moving forward, if I wanted her to speed up I would click my fingers, if I wanted her to slow down I would make a ’ssss’ sound. I could either drop her or release her forward. We moved forward like this before I let her get on.
This may sound a bit odd, but has proved very useful. Let me explain – I drop her with the word ’sit’. It is an emphatic ’sit’ with an emphasis on the ’s’ sound. This means that I can now drop her, when close, using just a ’ssss’ sound – thanks to Peter O’Driscoll for this tip. When I feed her I have never let her leap in on her bowl without my command. I place her bowl on the floor then call her to me, I then make her hup, then only release her to eat when she has made eye contact and maintained it for longer than a few seconds. I release her forward to eat using a finger click. In any situation now if I click my fingers she moves forward to investigate. Tying the two commands together means I have useful control over her roading in on a bird. She points, I get to her, I click my fingers, she moves forward, I ’sss’ she slows down, I click, she moves forward and so on. Very useful. I just have to ensure that I am there alongside her early enough to stop her putting the bird up accidentally before I am there, or indeed I put the bird up as I move alongside her, resulting in the urge to chase.
It will all come together eventually….and hopefully I will still be young enough to get on the moors when it does!
October 28, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Just catching up on your diary (I’ve had a week away on hols) and the tip on getting ‘eye contact’ at meal time sounds useful. I thought I’d got Daisy ‘checking in’ but it was pointed out in training that she was ‘checking in’ on my hand with the treat in it rather than me. Out in the open she’ll recall pretty well – but more or less backs up the last few steps to me ready to launch off again when I tell her. Is that pretty typical? On the plus side, and a small step towards establishing some self-control, she’s learned that the lead doesn’t go on to go out of the house until she sits (I let her work this out for herself and I don’t have to say anything) and in the same way she doesn’t get let off until she sits (wih her bottom properly on the floor!).
Keep up the good work with the diary – it’s a really useful read.
October 29, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Hi Sue
thanks for the feedback and your comments. With regards the recall I can only assume that somehow she is associating your recall (or at least the last stage of the getting back to you bit) with the joy of being sent away again. She is then predicting what will happen next. I would do as you do with the lead and make sure that she comes right to your side and sits (or at least stands still) before being released to run on again using a command such as ‘get on’. It seems that somehow the stimulus to ‘get on’ is actually her returning which may end up in a situation with her yo-yoing back to you, then away, then back to you and so on. It is important that she only ‘gets on’ after a distinct command. I would be inclined to work on the default (the absence of instruction) to result in her standing by your side waiting for an instruction, rather than the default being for her to run. I hope this makes some sense. I have just finished work and feel a bit tired! It soulnds as if you are getting there though
October 30, 2008 at 11:53 am
Thanks Howard – makes absolute sense to do as you say and I’ll work on reinforcing the ‘default’ of waiting for instructions after the recall.
Fascinating business though isn’t it..!
Sue