Water training for field trials gets fairly
complicated. It is mostly training pup not to run the bank and
not to hunt the shoreline.
There are a tremendous number of ways that field trial judges
can use to fool pup by using his bank running tendency and his
propensity to hunt shorelines. You should go to a lot of field
trials to educate yourself on the main themes that the judges
are currently using.
There are several ways to minimize the amount of force to be
used in the water training of a field trial dog:
1. Don't give pup any shore line birds for first 6 months of
pup's training career. Judges use shorelines to build the hazards
into a test. Every bird a dog finds on a shoreline trains him
to hunt shorelines. He already has an inherited tendency to hunt
shorelines. Don't reinforce that tendency. In other words, don't
train in what you have to train out later. The shoreline is what
judges use to make water tests tricky. For the first six months
of his water training pup should find almost all his water retrieves
out in the water well away from any shoreline.
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2. No water tests with bank running elements
until he's performing hand signals well. You must have a means
to put pup on the desired line in order to train him on bank
running tests. Hand signals are the means to put him on the line
desired. Thus hand signals are a prerequisite to bank running
training. Then you have way to communicate where you want pup
to go.
3. Don't hunt pup. He will get too many shoreline birds in typical
hunting situations, because most crippled ducks head for the
cov |
er of a shoreline. His inherent tendency
to hunt shorelines will be reinforced. He will develop behavior
that will require force to suppress. Notice that I did not say
you can't hunt a field trial dog. You can hunt a field trial
dog. He will probably do great at hunting. However, you make
the field trial dog's life much more difficult by hunting him.
Hunting produces and reinforces pup's tendencies to hunt shorelines
and hunt cover. Then force is required to suppress these behaviors
when pup goes back to field trailing.
4. To build the desired behaviors for a field trial dog, use
pup's natural inclination to take the same path on repeat performances.
Design the test that you want to train pup on. Then build the
right path in small pieces, before putting it together. Typically
is easier to get teach pup a difficult line by doing it backwards.
It is often easier to get pup to come back to you in a straight
line than it is to send him out on a straight line.
Try sitting pup at the end or finish point of the blind retrieve.
You go to the starting point and call him to you. By moving right
or left you can adjust and straighten his return path. Leave
him sitting at the starting point and you then let him watch
you go toss a dummy at the end of the line to the blind retrieve. |
