Handling and/or hand signals questions

[booger]

I've been working hand signals since last year (intermittently) . My dog will actually take a back command fairly well in water. I've worked around water a good amount, giving hand signals from shore to water, feet wet into water, half wagon wheel on shore.

That link is basically the drill I'm going to try - a T in water. In my internet dog training research I've read that article a few times.

And the Freddy King videos, he says its the first time this dog has done this drill. Its also a lab

[Bruce Schwartz]

to handle in water the dog needs to learn how to tread water. Here's how I did it with Gypsy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia5BI2jFTsI&t=3s

[booger]

to handle in water the dog needs to learn how to tread water. Here's how I did it with Gypsy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia5BI2jFTsI&t=3s

Thanks for that Bruce.

Btw I did go back and do your fun drill with walking, throwing and handling. It seemed to work well.

[GONEHUNTIN']

Rather than teach a dog to tread water, where they still move, teach them to "Bloat and float".

[booger]

Rather than teach a dog to tread water, where they still move, teach them to "Bloat and float".

Is that a practice that involves feeding my dog foam before the hunt?

But seriously I'm curious how that could be trained.

[GONEHUNTIN']

It is ver simple and involves a double rope and small pond. When you blow the whistle both people take tension on the rope and hold the dog in place until they stop fighting. Doesn't take long and requires NO pain. All well trained field trial retrievers " bloat and float". Used to really frost me when I'd hit the whistle and a dog spun and paddles slowly toward me. AAAArghhhhh!

[booger]

Did the same drill with a bucket at over (right) and back and it went well to start. Then fell apart. I'm not sure my dog is understanding the difference between back and over. Either that or the over bucket created a lot of suction. Started off with 3 backs again. Then back, whistle and over and it went great without having to throw a bumper. Then she wanted to go over when commanded back. Stop and restart - no add'l bumper thrown resulted in her going over a couple more times. Throwing a bumper to back also resulted in going over. So I lined her up with heel and fetch to back pile and that worked and then the backs sort of got better but she wanted to drift to over.

And apparently the place mat is a hot spot when bumpers are out. Again removed the bumpers and place improved. I really do need to do just the place mat. This is extraordinarily frustrating because I worked place mat by itself a few times previously, but did get on her about place before, so it looks like she's associated the place mat with pressure. But she'll do this perfectly in the yard. And the main reason for the place command is so I don't have to reset her every time, so she's made that completely pointless. I'm almost wondering if she should be forced to the place mat (or that could make it worse). This is why I say it is so hard to tell if she knows the command. I might have to put the lead and pinch collar on and just do place mat. I don't understand how having buckets and bumpers 80 yards away should effect place to the point of not doing it at all, compared to it being perfect in the yard and good without the bucket and bumpers. It boggles my mind.

I thought I'd just be cleaning up a couple things and my dog proved me wrong. I went back to a short wagon wheel drill to end it and that wasn't 100% either. Got some popping there to add to my frustration.

Smartworks should be here Monday, at least I can look forward to that. Again any help is appreciated. Needless to say I won't be trying this drill in water in the near future.

[Bruce Schwartz]

dog's confused so need to simplify; maybe get rid of place thing? Use go pro and links to it so we can see what you're talking about. A bit confusing from this end.

[Willie T]

Your dog is confused. You are trying to progress to quickly. Like Bruce said, it's time to back up and simplify. Force is not the answer right now. Isolate each command and teach. Work it till your dog can do it three consecutive days with no mistakes, then progress to the next command. Then you can sort them out with baseball. Then link them with T drill. Then double T. Reward and recognize effort. Don't penalize confusion. Less is often more. You will most often make more progress by taking your time and letting the dog soak up what it is learning. Use a "rule of three" to know when it is time to advance. When your dog can perform a command or task three consecutive days with zero mistakes it knows it. Then it is ready to progress to the next step.
Willie

[booger]

I can see why you guys think she's confused. She doesn't try other things to do the command though. And that is a huge part of the problem. It's like a damn kid saying I don't know and then not trying repeatedly when asked. Something's gotta give. And if I need to threaten her with force or lean on her, I will.

When I trained heel from the front or wherever (she'd only heel if I was walking previously), she did not try. I showed her over and over and over. I pulled her with a flat collar, I used a clicker, I manually moved her into position. Guess what got her to actually do it? A pinch collar and me yanking her. Her biggest obstacle was after the collar was off. She went back to not doing anything. I'd put the collar back on and she was perfect. So I started acting like I was going to yank her with the leash and she'd get into position. I made the same motion with the collar not attached to the leash, but with the leash in my hand and she'd finally get into position without the collar and leash. I think this exemplifies my problem perfectly.

I worked on place prior to throwing bumpers and it went good to start but then went to $#*! again after I started throwing bumpers. I decided to put the pinch collar on this afternoon and she'd at least go out in front of me, this morning she was just staying at heel the whole time and avoiding the mat even at heel. I needed the control, no way around it IMO. The casting didn't suffer because of it and I was throwing just singles, so at least I didn't take a step back there.

I know you guys might think that will produce a bad result, but I have probably given over a thousand (combined) commands over and back going back to last year.

I recorded with the gopro on the last session, but my memory card isn't getting recognized from my computer.

[GONEHUNTIN']

There are two things you should consider here:1) Not all versatile dog's will learn to handle and probably none to the level of a retriever. Handling or any rote work bores many of them. 2) You may be misreading your dog; the dog may be tough and untractable, not soft.

[booger]

Another big part is she's 5 and I'm trying to teach a dog that wasn't trained much before I got her. So I really feel like she never learned how to learn. It does really stem from having confidence issues, so I'm coming to terms with her possibly not being able to handle very well. She might not have the stability or intelligence to go much further. Another guy with her litter mate (and similar issues) ended up leaning on his male dog and that dog turned into a basket case.

Most of this is just venting from me and me looking for other alternative training ideas. It seems like my dog needs to be taught 3 different ways to actually learn.

[AverageGuy]

Posting some video of a couple of training sessions would give folks much better information to read the dog/situation and advise accordingly.

[booger]

Had some technical difficulties with the gopro and I'm not much for editing, so here are my edited versions of yesterday's training.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG4DWZw ... =kbooger20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uRhcLU ... =kbooger20

I have the head mounted gopro, so sorry for the bumpy, constantly moving video. What you aren't able to see is me giving my dog treats after she does this stuff correctly. You also can't really see me yanking with the pinch collar, you can kind of hear the chain and I'm not pulling overly hard. Prior to starting recording, I tried to have her go to her place and it wasn't going very well, so I put on the collar.

As you can see she starts out getting "place" down from about 35 yards away before I start throwing bumpers and then it goes south. She takes the casts just fine because they are thrown marks and I don't stop her to re-cast. The place command got a little better after I put away the bumpers towards the end.

I'm pretty confident that if I left the bumpers out of it altogether she'd be damn near perfect on place. I also think the back casting is partly to blame.

[flitecontrol]

You're right, the dog is getting confused with the addition of the bumpers. I'd try moving close to the "place" while she is retrieving, so when she delivers, she's very close to it, and less likely to wander. Then gradually move farther away, building on success. Once she get's it right a time or two, end that day's training.