Help from a Professional Trainer – part 1

Last fall I found myself in the midst of dealing with a health issue that prevented me from training my dog as often as I had been accustomed, or providing additional exercise to compensate for the less frequent training. As his energy levels increased unabated by exercise, my family’s complaints about his behavior increased exponentially! What was I to do? The lack of exercise was causing behavior that was building bad habits – Strider had even started to mark in the house. This told me that I had a situation where the more energy he had, the more he succeeded in pushing the boundaries, the more he thought he was "the man". Not a good path to be going down.

I reached out to his breeder for some advice. She was training with a pro and suggested that I join them a few times so she could see where Strider was and how we interacted together. So, I traipsed the hour and a half to meet up with the training group by 7:30am one Sunday morning. We drove caravan style to the training location for the day and began to set up across some wide open rolling hills. The people who were there to learn to train their dogs did not work in the fields, there were others designated to do that, trained to a consistency in what to do and when. The people who were there to train were to sit at the line and watch and listen and learn! And, WOW, did I learn! I alternated between shock and awe that first day. I heard the trainer explain the set ups and what the goal of each was. I heard the trainer quiz us on what we thought the various "traps" were in the set up – what the dogs were likely to do. And, I heard the people asked about where their dog was that day – how it had performed in the previous sessions and how successful it had been. Then a plan was devised for that dog to work that series; a plan that would address both what the dog needed to work on and how much success was needed to keep the attitude good. I always knew that there was more to field training than throwing marks, but this dog by dog conversation taught me more in one day than all the books I’d read and all the DVD’s I’d watched! It almost seemed like magic as I watched dog after dog do exactly what was predicted for that dog!

I quickly realized that I had made some mistakes in my training approach that were telling my dog that he was in charge, that he could make the choices. I noticed immediately that the dogs in training here were required to abide by a high obedience standard. These standards were not just for the line, but getting out of the car, walking to the field, getting into the crate. Each step of the way, the dog was told what was expected rather than allowed to dictate it. Hmmmm….somehow I had bought into a "Golden"-style of training that said you had to keep a dog happy by throwing happy bumpers and not focusing on obedience because that might kill his joy. Well, that appeared to backfire with my boy because he had a high level of retrieve drive to begin with. For him, the retrieve was the reward. My lack of standards was just telling him that he could choose what to retrieve and when. No wonder I was getting casting results that looked like…tweet… dog sits promptly and looks at me… hands up… cast right over… dog looks right for a few seconds then back at me, then looks left and back out me with a look that says "you don’t know what you are talking about – it’s over THERE"… dog casts left over and starts hunting…sigh…

I knew I had a trainer problem (me), I just didn’t think it would be this obvious this quickly… on the first day! But, stay tuned… there is more learning to come.