trainers & pointers

[that a boy]

Great insight from all !
I've used whoa in early training with some half decent success in yard training. When he doesn't comply i will raise my voice which in some cases he will stop and roll on his back.He is certainly not a soft dog but i think i may have over reacted with the whoa command when he chased geese for 20 minutes without acknowledging me . I know he new i was calling ,but i lost my cool. I didn't hit him but i was vocal with him. I use the whoa command but i think i will try to use the stay command instead.I didn't have a electronic collar at the time.As Jakezilla said the collar takes the emotion out of it, he's exactly right.

[Sharon]

Great insight from all !
I've used whoa in early training with some half decent success in yard training. When he doesn't comply i will raise my voice which in some cases he will stop and roll on his back.He is certainly not a soft dog but i think i may have over reacted with the whoa command when he chased geese for 20 minutes without acknowledging me . I know he new i was calling ,but i lost my cool. I didn't hit him but i was vocal with him. I use the whoa command but i think i will try to use the stay command instead.I didn't have a electronic collar at the time.As Jakezilla said the collar takes the emotion out of it, he's exactly right.

Try having that happen in the middle of a trial with 20 people watching. I still remember that day.

[Jakezilla]

Thanks for replying Sharon.


Your method works and when it comes to training dogs there are a 100 different ways to do it with no real right or wrong as long as you can get the dog broke and honest. But there are limitations to some of the methods. You also have to decide what level of competency you want out of your dog. For myself I want 100% broke, bomb proof, good enough to be competitive at the highest levels in American Field sanctioned trials which is probably more that many of you require or want.


From your answer it sounds like if the dog doesn't comply the command is repeated and reinforced with an e-collar.


I am going to talk about general situations here, not that Sharon does this, she may do something different but these are things I see in the field with other amateur trainers. I am also going through this to get myself thinking about and looking at my training process to see if there are any deficencies. If any of the other experienced trainers want to chime in I welcome your thoughts but I may ask some tough questions. The best way to gain greater understanding of something is to teach it.


So now we have a situation where the dog doesn't respond to the initial command so the command is repeated and backed up with the e-collar. If this scenario is repeated enough theorectially you get a dog that starts stopping on the second whoa instead of the first because it regularly gets corrected on the second whoa. For all it knows the command to stop could be "whoa WHOA". I think this is the basis for the "Don't repeat commands" mantra. Speaking from personal experience it takes more discipline than I have to not repeat commands. The other thing is that a command that is constantly repeated just becomes background noise to the dog.


So how do we get around this do we start using the e-collar on the first command every time? If so what level are we using? Do we use momentary or continuous stimulation?


So say we get the dog to reliably stop in the yard on the whoa command combined with a low bump from the e-collar. Now we move into the field. When you intially move out of the field and to a new location the training will probably slip back some and it may take some repetition to help the dog understand that the rules learned in the yard apply outside the yard as well. Also as you move out of the yard the level of distraction will increase and you will probably have to increase the level of stimulation to get the dog to comply. So once you do some repetitions outside the yard and you are getting consistent results now you move on to birds. Here you will definitely have to raise the stimulation level of both voice and e-collar. This requires some finesse, enough to get the job done but not too much where it shuts the dog down. Personally, I believe with a high prey drive dog I am not even sure they hear you when they take off after that bird on the flush.


So up to the birds I think this method can be done by almost anyone with the right dog. But when we start with birds I think we start to have potential issue. Up to this point the combination of whoa and e-collar mean stop so we are relying to 2 things to happen in combination, the dog hearing us and the dog feeling the stimulation, then putting it together in their head and putting the brakes on. Now if we can get the dog stopping with the e-collar only (Huntsmith Whoa post) we remove the requirement of the voice command from the equation along with the emotion associated with the voice command. When that dog takes off after the bird it is probalby going to take a heck of a WHOA for him to hear you due to his focus on the chase. How do you increase the volume of your voice with out yelling, without inflection of panic or urgency or sounding angry.


Like I said, this method will work I am just going through the reasons I don't really like it or maybe I just don't understand the method.


This is completely off the top of my head and I could be wrong but... When I work with my dogs I see a difference in their response to voice commands and e-collar stimulation commands. I am not sure but I think they process the 2 differently. Just by watching the dogs it seems with voice commands they need to process it and then decide if they want to comply. Where with E-collar only commands it appears the initial reaction is more of a reflex resulting in compliance after which they then decide if they want to continue with the compliance or do their own thing. This is where timing comes into it as well. It appears to me that there is a difference in the reaction speed between voice commands and e-collar commands but this could also be because I rely on my e-collar much more than vocal commands in the training process. The reaction time doesn't matter much with most commands but I believe it makes a difference when it comes to the breaking process and the amount of time it takes the dog to put things together and understand what you want.

[Jakezilla]

Great insight from all !
I've used whoa in early training with some half decent success in yard training. When he doesn't comply i will raise my voice which in some cases he will stop and roll on his back.He is certainly not a soft dog but i think i may have over reacted with the whoa command when he chased geese for 20 minutes without acknowledging me . I know he new i was calling ,but i lost my cool. I didn't hit him but i was vocal with him. I use the whoa command but i think i will try to use the stay command instead.I didn't have a electronic collar at the time.As Jakezilla said the collar takes the emotion out of it, he's exactly right.

You are dealing with a young pointer pup from Pinehill Kennels. He should be about 10 months now? Be careful with an e-collar at that age, you are better off just watching out where you cut him loose. If there is something with feathers around or fur for that matter he is probably going to chase it and give you the finger. Even if you had a collar on him you shouldn't be using it around anything with feathers at that age. If it was deer he was chasing at that age I would turn the collar up to weld and trash break him. For the process I am talking about there are specific steps to go through to establish the point of contact on the dog so that you can stop him with an e-collar. You generally wouldn't start that process until after a good puppy development and at least 1 year of age.

If he is rolling on his back I would guess it is probably because as some point, you got mad or raised your voice, he rolled over, you let up or consoled him. Not that you should have stayed on him but "soft" dogs usually aren't that soft, they are just good manipulators. So in this case you get mad, the dog rolls over, you let up and now the dog has learned how to turn off that pressure.

[Sharon]

"From your answer it sounds like if the dog doesn't comply the command is repeated and reinforced with an e-collar."

I'm not a wordy person , but actually the dog told me that he says to himself. " I'd better obey that first time so I don't get corrected with the e collar."

[vom Dufenshmirtz]

Thanks Jakezilla for your thoughts. All very interesting. Maurice Landley (and others before him) method also relies on e-c or tag on a CC attached to a pinch collar (no whoa). OTOH, Germans train their dogs to lie down (halt!) while in hot pursuit of a game. They use a whistle though, which to your point is probably easier for a dog to hear than voice. But Germans breed for this sort of obedience