Do you think we are ready?

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davisn

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Hi all,

As you may remember I have a choc lab called Dylan, who is nearly 18 months old. I got him at 8 weeks old. We live on a small holding in Snowdonia & he is very good with all the animals (horses, cattle, sheep & chickens) being off lead all the time, even in the fields with the other animals.

We have been attending basic obedience classes since the summer last year. We were moved up a class after 4 weeks, so that was good! We are by no means perfect & we still have much room for improvement. However, we are both finding the classes a little boring, being held in a small hall & spending quite a bit of time stood at the side whilst others take their turn.

I was thinking about maybe trying some agility or gun dog training with him. Just something where we can both continue to learn & improve, but hopefully with a bit more fun involved.

Is there a basic level of training that we need to meet before we can look at other types of training? Can anyone recommend any classes or trainers in the Caernarfon area?
 
Give a few clubs a call and see what they say, I think you could give whatever you wanted a go.:)

You could try starting some gundog work yourself, start with easy retrieves in open ground and when he's happy with that then you can start making it more and more challenging, hiding the dummy or toy in cover, or using two dummies and sending him for one then back for the other. I bet he will enjoy it:)
 
Thanks Echodomino, His recall is pretty good, although not 100% (about 10% of the time some smell or other person/dog is more interesting than me). I think my location is against me as that site & others I have searched show nothing close to me. I think I may have found somewhere on Anglesey, so will contact them for more info.

Spudlet said:
You could try starting some gundog work yourself, start with easy retrieves in open ground and when he's happy with that then you can start making it more and more challenging, hiding the dummy or toy in cover, or using two dummies and sending him for one then back for the other. I bet he will enjoy it:)
Click to expand...

Thanks Spudlet. He is quite good at playing fetch with a ball or frisby. He is excellent at going & finding his toys when I tell him to & bringing them to me, now he can usually bring the right toy that I have asked for rather than randomly selecting one. We have a dummy but we don't play with it much at the moment because he got too keen with it & I had to do some emergency repairs (he;s grow up a lot since then so I'll look it out again. What's the best way to use one? Make him sit & wait & then go place it on the ground, walk back & then get him to fetch?
 
Gundog training is rather simple to start at home.

Invest in some good training books and DVDs and if you have any shoots near to you you can enquire as to wether they would allow you to come watch dogs being worked.

As long as your dog has the basics down and is still finding learning fun then the timing should be great to start. Dummy work is excellent and really really fun for owner and dog, and once you get into the advanced stuff its really rewarding.
 
With Henry, I had to get him interested in the dummy, then I threw it out across the kitchen, let him run straight after it then encouraged him back to me and took it gently from him with lots of praise and a reward. You have a retrieve already, so maybe you could start with the dummy only going a short distance but get him to sit and wait while you throw it (you might need to have him on a lead to begin with as he will probably want to chase straight after it!) and get him to fetch it only on your command. He will possibly find this challenging but it will exercise his mind and develop some self control in him as well.

If you are going to place it on the ground, you could try pretending to hide it in a couple of places so he has to hunt for it and use his nose rather than just watching you, eventually you will be able to have him totally out of sight and he will be able to hunt the dummy out by smell alone.

Mind you I am no expert but those are both exercises that Henry and I enjoy doing:)

You can work on teaching left and right when he gets the retrieve bit, you can do this next to a fence line, with a long line. You get him to sit a few feet in front of you, throw a dummy out on either side, then you gesture really, really clearly at the one you want while giving him the fetch command. If he goes for the wrong one you can check him with the line.

You could also teach him to 'go back' which means he has to retrace his steps, we learnt this by having Henry walking with me at hell, I dropped a dummy but got him to keep walking, then stopped and told him to go back and fetch, so he got what go back means.

A good trainer will have loads more exercises, but these are fun things that Henry found challenging but not hugely so and we did enjoy learning them:)
 
Spudlet,

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.

I will certainly have a go at some of your suggestions while I try to find a trainer. Dylan can already sit & wait while I throw a ball, then fetch on command, so I'll try that with the dummy & see how we get on. It's amazing how he can do complicated stuff quite well, but still doesn't understand 'down' without me putting my hand down on the floor (well, he can in the house, but not outside), but will do 'sit' just with a hand signal - strange boy.

I think I may have got my early training wrong through. When he brings things back to me he either drops it at my feet (while he's still moving in his rush for a treat) or he holds it & doesn't give it back easily (wanting to play tug of war) - so I need to sort this out pretty quickly.
 
With Henry, I used clicker training to teach the hold - I just didn't click until the second the dummy hit my hand, and gradually I got him to wait for longer and longer until he got the click. You could do the same without a clicker, by using the treat with verbal praise although the clicker would probably make it a bit easier. At first you will need to be quick to get the dummy from his mouth to your hand, basically make sure he succeeds by putting your hand right onto the dummy so he is giving it to you without even meaning to. Eventually he should get the idea that he only gets his lovely reward if he puts the dummy in your hand - you up the difficulty a bit at a time so he has to move the dummy into your hand. You can get him to hold then, by hiding your hands behind your back so he has to hold onto it for a bit longer.

Henry does get the different between dummies, which he is not allowed to spit out, and his ball, which he is, so I'm sure Dylan will also get it:)

If he wants to tug, I would refuse to engage, use a calm, firm 'give' command, don't let go, but don't pull back either. If he is being stubborn you could just gently pop his mouth open with your free hand then praise as he lets go. Again, he will get the idea eventually. It is a good idea to train this anyway so you can get forbidden things off him.

You might find this useful too http://www.horseandcountry.tv/episode/hc-how-retrieve-howard-kirby-episode-5
:)
 
There is the Pods flyball team on Anglesey www.flyball.org.uk to look them up (and there is also an agility person at Tai lawr.) They are really lovely people imo. We go there in the summer for a tournament and have a great time. If you join them we might meet you there.
 
Thank you.

Goya, Thanks for that link. I have sent an email for more information. If we decide to give agility a go then we will definitely try these people.

Spudlet, Thank you for all your assistance. I have found a gun dog trainer on Anglesey called Frank Morrey. He seems very experienced, maybe a bit too good to be interested in teaching a couple of complete beginners like us, but I have contacted him anyway to see what he says. I just think gun dog training might suit Dylan more than agility, but as I haven't had anything much to do with either before, then I guess I won't know for sure until I give them a go. The strange things you get into in order to keep your animals happy.

My friend has said that she'd also like to join us. She has a 8 month old Irish Water Spaniel, so he might have to wait a bit before trying agility. He's got much more energy than Dylan, but he doesn't really have a retrieve yet & he's finding it difficult to concentrate as his hormones have really kicked in this last month, poor little sod. I think she'll be taking him for a vet visit sooner than planned!
 
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