FF During Season????

[AverageGuy]

Made it halfway through last night. Good Stuff, Thanks for posting Bruce.

[Kiger2]

OK,
Time to see what we have learned.

Couple of fun things first.

Average guy, Talk about spitin coffee! The dog wanted to please you so much it only took a few whippings to fix him!!!!!


Bruce, Cognitive dissonance. Big words. How about projecting? See you are the one that actually has cognitive dissonance. What you are doing is trying to project that on me. You are focused on the cheese. You dont see the hand on the Jowl because she told you not to watch it. I can clearly see the hand and the cheese. In science we have to eliminate variables. We have cheese and we have a jowl pinch. If we just used one of these methods, which one would achieve the desired hold faster???? The dog doesnt have to scream from a Jowl pinch for it to be pressure.

OK,
So I got the lab back last week. As I expected, we went to the table and he picked up right where we left off. So being away and being at home where discipline is not as well enforced comes back to me and its like he never left. So yes you can stop FF at any pint and pick it up again. If your training has been effective, it wont go away.

So what we have learned from this thread is that no one but me apparently has ever FF during season and cannot really specify what harm would actually happen if FF during season at home and dont enforce anything in the field till pup is prepared.

So we should have pup prepared for season as much as possible. But we shouldnt let season interfere with training.

I asked a question about my friends dog tha had surgery. No one responded. Should he get a new dog because the dog missed 6 weeks or so of its first season????

[ANick]

OK,
<snipped> .......... You dont see the hand on the Jowl because she told you not to watch it. .... <snipped> ??

"...she told you not to watch it.. " Where was that?

Either side of the 1:00 minute mark, she is explaining quite mater of factly how she is gripping that muzzle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... hPdkWDq3Y0

Scientific method, as I recall learning it, was usually not taught concurrently with the creative writing subjects like fiction.

But that aside, you really mean to be saying that without positive reinforcement of any sort, just the grip on the muzzle as shown, the pup would be reaching for that buck as quickly? With or without the same wag count?

Really?

[AverageGuy]

OK,

Average guy, Talk about spitin coffee! The dog wanted to please you so much it only took a few whippings to fix him!!!!!

I asked a question about my friends dog tha had surgery. No one responded. Should he get a new dog because the dog missed 6 weeks or so of its first season????

Yea, PR is not a training method likely to ever be successful in trash breaking any dog I would choose to own. I assumed, (apparently incorrectly), that the chasm of difference in our ability to easily control a dog while working on a trained retrieve at close hand vs a hound running a deer at great distances would be self evident.

On the latter question, I will always error on the side of exhausting all possibilities before giving up on a dog. I don't recall what you gave for details as to what development this dog had prior to its injury, but I would pick up where I left off and put it into birds. With good genetics I think most of them will turn out well even if perhaps not what they might have been otherwise.

[Kiger2]

Averageguy,
It was the statement, not the method. The dog was so eager to please you, you only had to whoop it a couple of times? Thats funny!

When I was building my house years ago I was up on the roof helping the framers with sheathing. One of the guys says hey your dogs are chasing a deer. Sure enough the two 'goldens were hot on the trail of a blacktail, everyone going full out. I yelled NO heel. Both dogs broke off the chase. Pretty sure it must have been the cheese treats as I never whipped them.

[ANick]

Well,

Oddly enough this last summer I had a Sunday morning that was rather similar to that roofing sighting. Dot and I stepped out of the house to see a blacktail doe down by the 'bungalow' (in another life it was a chicken coop) that decided heading out of the backyard for the street was a good idea. Doe took off, Dot kicked into high gear behind it. However, I just gave her a sharp, 'Dot, Heel!'.

She peeled off and ran back to park right there, just off my left knee with her eye pretty much even with my kneecap. I thought she did that pretty well, but I didn't have a treat of any kind for her. She had to settle for a, 'Good Girl'. I'd have given her one if I'd had it.

However, best I can tell, I wouldn't have given the goldens a treat. Unless of course they came up the ladder to heel. That I'd have treated them for.

[AverageGuy]

One day last week Spud and I went out to do evening chores. I was engrossed in thought as I put on my mud boots and threw open the garage walk through door with Spud proceeding in front of me. There were 5 deer feeding in the yard 10 yards from the door. The deer herd blew out like a covey of quail and Spud made 2 bounds before I got "Spud NO!" out of my mouth. He slammed to a stop and stood there until I told him to Heel and he did just that. No ecollar on him at the time, but the ecollar was certainly key in breaking him from running deer in the first place, many times at distances of several hundred yards away and out of sight.

[JONOV]

Thinking about blanket advice...You have to know your own strengths and limitations. It's a lot like advice on diet or personal finance. What is generally good advice for most people might not be applicable to someone on an individual level.

[Kiger2]

double post

[Kiger2]

Jonov,
How does your comment relate to the topic of the post?

[JONOV]

Jonov,
How does your comment relate to the topic of the post?

The advice is "Don't Force Fetch during the hunting season." For someone with relatively little experience, this isn't bad advice. Similarly, you might tell your 22 year old "Avoid Credit cards and consumer debt, they're a trap to your financial well being. It isn't inherently bad advice for anyone, ever.

However, for a guy that's trained a bunch of dogs to a finished level, they can take that advice with a grain of salt with the understanding that they understand why the advice is there in the first place; you don't want to confuse the dog, you don't want to lose focus, you don't want to rush the process to get him back in the blind, etc...And they can mentally weigh the pro's and cons and decide from there what's best for them. They have the ability to recognize what to do, what not to do, and the cost of what they're doing, and the opportunity costs involved in focusing on one area of a dogs development vs another.

Similar to the "avoid credit cards and consumer debt" line, if you take a CPA or professional with good financial sense, habits, and discipline, he may well choose to finance a car and put his cash payment in a mutual fund where it will greatly outearn the interest rate. Or, he might have a lot of business travel and a rewards CC that gets reimbursed every month for the expense report (as opposed to spending like a Congressman at Cabelas or the Pub) will make his household budget easier while allowing him frequent flyer miles or hotel points.

[Kiger2]

Jonov,

I ALLWAYS approach giving advice towards the newer trainers. I have given new trainers one more tool to use to make a decision on when they can FF. Should they let pup munch birds all season or can one do both??

I wouldnt for a minute tell someone to do something that would harm the dog or training progress. No one else has stated they have actually done FF during season or given any real issues that would develope. They have only provided speculation. I have actually done it, on more than one occaision.

Do it or dont do it, but dont choose not to because you think something bad will happen. You wont have issues doing it during season that you wouldnt have doing before season.

Once again , the rule is simple, FF at home, dont enforce anything in the field until it has been proofed in the yard.


One other really important factor to consider. The parts of FF where the dog may be stressed we dont even use birds. The dog doesnt get Forced on birds until its competent with bucks, bumpers or ??

So your advice is not to do it, even though you have no personal experience trying it. I have experience doing it, Whose giving better advice??

[Bruce Schwartz]

Kiger: would you mind telling us a little more about how you go about FF, as well as your experience doing FF during the hunting season? Also, how much total time has your relative's dog been "on the table"? Where is the dog in the FF process? How much did it hunt and what did it hunt this season? What are it's mouth habits to date in the field (retrieves but drops birds?, chomps?, won't retrieve?, etc.)? I'm thinking your relative's dog is a Labrador Retriever ... I can't remember.

I think I'd need a bit more information before I declare you an expert on FF during the hunting season (that would be "traditional FF", as adding a bit of cheese likely would make this whole discussion moot).

[ryanr]

Who cares if somebody does FF during hunting season or not? Seriously, who besides Kiger actually cares?

[woodboro]

ff is the most complicated training out of them all.
Yet its the foundation for a life time of successful hunting.
1st page discuss came up about hard mouth , would you fix or keep hunting. I kept on hunting ... and got quite heavy handed on the dog.
This was a big tough alpha dog , that was actually my best dog I ever owned.
He softened quite noticeably , but would never let game get away, his drive was spectacular.
I myself have never been in position to force break a dog while I wanted to hunt the dog.
I was a pro for a few years, and have started FF in the late autumn , but dog would never be put in a situation to retrieve a hunted bird.
I am a strong believer formal training 'FIRST' .
In other words I would without a doubt sacrifice a hunt season with a dog , to have the other 9 years of wonderful hunting.
I am aware some guys on this sight are overly concerned about bringing the hunt out of the dog the 1st year , so they know they have a hunting dog.
IMO that would be asking Requel Welch if she has a giner.
IF it's your only dog , and it's a pointer , I'd say you could hunt it without a doubt during FF , but I would never expect a retrieve back to me.
But that is only my thought.
I have a pup and it will be going into the spring test , youngest I have ever run.
His stability and physical make up are amazing , so I have worked him in the snow on birds, rabbit tracking , and when he was 12 weeks old was working
on blood tracking.
He is now on the table , but no pressure on him until after the spring test.