Casting at long distances

Mike · Casting at long distances

I was wondering what people generally do on very long blinds when the dog ignores a cast and carries on their own merry way? By and large what I have seen would be called attrition in the states (resit them and recast ad nauseum until they eventually go the way you want or refuse to do anything at all Rolling Eyes

) I was wondering what else people do.

DesO'Neile

I would be firmly in the attrition camp.

windem bang

And I firmly agree with Des.

Bill T.

Pitbull

I am at the moment training on memory retrieves. (I'm only talking about 100 - 150 metres) and when she doesn't go a direct route or goes off and starts quatering I call her back too heel. If I feel that I just haven't set it out right, as I know she can do it, so more than likely it is something that I have or am doing that is causing the problem. I end up calling her to heel walking out and picking up the dummy or having her in the sit position and I go out on my own to pick it up. Then start all over again. But on a slightly shorter run, or re-evaluate the conditions.

At the moment I am doing about 3 dummies in a line. 1st 1 at say 75 yrds, 2nd and 100yrds, then the 3rd about the 125 - 150yrds. If she misses out the middle one for what ever reason, and with it being in a field of older stubble and I can't remember where the dummy is, I then change the training back to quatering with the whistle.

windem bang

Be careful of that way of working Pitbull. Your dog may come to expect to be whistle stopped and she may begin to show unfavourable anticipation. In other words she may stop and wait for directions during a perfectly good outrun - with NO whistle having been blown.

I think Mike was asking what best to do if a dog has been whistle stopped at range and then insists on going in the direction it fancies rather than in the direction given by the handler. This is a little bit different from the straight line concept of an obedience ring type sendaway.
I find it best to give the sitting dog time to really focus on me before redirecting it - prevention rather than cure.

Bill T.

josie

I would probably try attrition at the first refusal (assume that the dog just made a mistake the first time).

If the dog then still continued to ignore me, I would decide that either 1. the dog thought it knew best where the retrieve was and was ignoring me or 2. there is some factor which is confusing the dog - landscape, trees, cover, the colour of my shirt against the sky - any number of things which are making the dog misunderstand the cast.

Either way, after one refusal, I'd leave the dog in a sit, walk out to the retrieve "hey hey" the dog and mark it. Walk back to original place. Cast dog. I'd do this no matter how far it was. (Assuming it was accessible!).

Then I'd set the whole thing up again and run the retrieve from the original place and through repetition see that the dog gets it right.

Pitbull

Pitbull

Sorry this is a bit side tracked but....

I was talking to a bloke from the BASC stand a few weeks back, and he said that he would use "smoke in a bottle" when training, and sometimes even after. Its a fine talc that stalkers use in america. It will tell them how the wind is blowing in front of them, and they can then tell why the dog is working the way it is. Or atleast a good idea of why anyway.

windem bang

I went through 30 small cigars per day doing that ! Laughing

Bill T.

guy

I do attrition. Also move forward - run if poss when the dog is sat. Only 20 paces but enough for him tho think 'he's getting after me'

DesO'Neile · Closing the gap.

Guy,
I call that closing the gap. If you assume an aggressive enough posture you won't even have to go 20ms. It's all about body language. You might think that arms raised above the head works best but I find that chenched fists at the waist, a bit like The Incredible Hulk bursting out of his shirt works best.

Josie.
Once you can be confident that the dog may know better than you it is obviously best to let the dog work it out for themselves but in early training all you are doing by letting it disobey is teaching it to disobey and building up problems for the day when it is vital that it takes your direction. I can think of no more vital a situation than when you friend shoots their right and left at woodcock and your dog insists it retrieving the dead bird first instead of going after the lightly wingtipped runner.

windem bang

I posted on the "close the gap " situation about a year or more ago. My post concerned how to handle the disobedient dog at a distance situation in a trial or test.

When you compete in a test or trial and the dummy or bird falls and the dog starts to disobey out there you are not allowed to move forward in a threatening manner - or in any manner at all .

So don't move forward - move back but make sure the judge sees you take the two backward strides. Then you can move forward again in threat posture and since you haven't gotten any nearer to the dog than you were when you started , there isn't much a judge can say about it even if they want to !

Obviously this can also be done in training but in that situation the handler should, from time to time, complete what the threat posture implies and go right out to the dog and "remonstrate" with it !

Bill T.

guy

josie

Helen

Attrition here as well but like Josie, will give them a chance before really doing anything. I can usually tell by their body language if they are taking the pee or not. I like to trust my dogs and for them to work a little independently. It is quite difficult to give a definite response as there are so many variables, for me anyway.

Just finished reading the second page (responded after the first page
) and agree with Des as well.

Helen

DesO'Neile

This has just been mentioned so I feel I can try and make my point again. I have heard the most successful handlers in nearly all gundog disciplines use the phrase "Taking the piss". I don't believe that this is possible. I believe that when a dog appears to be TTP it is in fact only acting in a manner that it feels was considered appropriate at some time in the past. I would also suggest that this was more than likely because the handler failed to intervene, for a whole lot of reasons, some valid some not so, when the dog acted inappropriately.

josie

I agree Des.

Helen

I agree Des and didn't really mean it literally. Just easier typing than the full explanation.

Helen

BlackIsler

munstyman

Needless to say I'll side with the `old school' on this, but there is something else to consider, namely the dogs perception of right and left, and does its thought processes occasionally get confused. i.e. when you are pointing left and the dog is facing you and then it goes to its left ( your right). I ask this out of interest, as I've noticed that dogs quartering rarely make this mistake, yet the same dog can and do go in the `opposite' direction when given direction from a sit or stop on a retrieve. I wonder if the dogs response would be any different if it was trained to a whistle `left' and `right' as is done with sheep dogs Question

Peter

windem bang

I have seen that done Peter. Maybe it would work well with a good handler ,the man I watched do it was not ! He was running a lab I'd bred in a novice trial and I was embarrssed for him. The poor dog was so confused it didn't know what to do ! The man was using a shepherds mouth whistle and he sounded like the bloody dawn chorus ! I came 2nd in that trial with his bitchs' litter sister and heard the judges comments about the whistle for rights and lefts - they were not at all impressed.

I think the shepherds dog very often has a big advantage over ours - it can see its prey and can understand it is being worked onto it in the way its pack leader wants.

Just my thoughts, I wish I had a few better ones !

Bill T.

Claire

I've been reading this thread with great interest because one of my main challenges at the moment is when Whistle is at a distance from me and I am trying to get her to do something. Attrition is certainly what I attempt to use, I'm not saying it always works the way it should Laughing

What Peter has described about a dog's perception of left & right differing from when it is quartering to when it is being sent for a retrieve is EXACTLY the problem I am having at the moment.

I have been working on my marked retrieves with Gary throwing the dummy and Whistle is certainly improving. My own silly fault for not spending enough time on them. Last week I did a blind retrieve, about 150yds, it was fairly easy, or so I thought. Basically it was on a new piece of ground but it was down a track with a crop field on one side and long grasses on the other. I told Whistle to get out and she got completely sidetracked with what I can only assume was a lot of ground scent because at one point she had lost interest in the retrieve altogether Rolling Eyes

To cut a long story short I decided that come hell or high water she must get this retrieve on her own, ie without me going right out to the dummy because I have taught her that whenever I say "get out" there is ALWAYS something there for her to retrieve and so I didn't want to risk her thinking that on this occasion nothing was there. If that makes sense. It probably took me the best part of 15 mins to finally get her to find the dummy and bring it back. Give Whistle her due, once I got her off the ground scent she hunted like a trogan trying to find the dummy, but she was mega confused and I'm sure I confused her even more. I did end up having to walk out towards the dummy and I ended up being about 80yds away from it, just because I couldn't seem to get her to listen to me or understand my hand signals from any greater a distance.

The only good thing to come out of this was, at one point I blew my stop whistle and she did a beautiful stop n sit at about 100 yds away cos I think she was so fed up of running around trying to understand me she was happy to sit so we could both try and think about what the hell we were doing Embarassed

It was very frustrating for me because I was questioning myself as to whether I was doing the right thing and if not why not and what could I do to change it. She appeared to either not be listening to me and just hunting on her own accord desperate to find the dummy, or, when she was listening to me she just wasn't understanding my hand signal telling her to go left.

So how do you sort this out??

windem bang

I have similar problems that arise before 150 yards out on a blind retrieve Claire. I go back to basics and I greatly shorten the distances until the dog shows comprehension and willingness once more then I try to build up again in easy stages .

To be honest if a dog becomes confused/unwilling time after time at long range I cease trying to send it altogether - I value enthusiasm and terrific willingness far more than distance control on a hypothetical bird . This often shows in my dogs but I was never required to send my dogs for a 150 yard blind in a H.P.R. trial so I can't see the point in stressing out an otherwise perfectly good dog by trying in vain to train for that unlikely event.

Bill T.

josie

I teach my directions using the US method. (I don't expect to hear much support for it here, but will at least type it out so we have a range of methods explained, variety is the spice of life and all that Laughing

)

I start by teaching mini-3 way casting. In my mind, unless my dog can be sat with a dummy left, right and behind it (within throwing distance) and then be accurately sent for whichever one I choose, then I shouldn't move on. I move on from throwing these dummies in front of the dog, to quietly placing them there, so they become sight blinds. (Dog can see them as they are white and near by, but didn't see them thrown.) It often looks like the dog understands, when it is actually only going for the dummy it has seen thrown. The ultimate test is when I can put a sight blind in one location (back, say), and then throw dummies to left/right - send the dog back and have the dog unhesitatingly go back to the sight blind and not to the just-thrown left or right dummies. This whole exercise takes many weeks, I just did it with Grey and we've moved onto the T drill now.

The T drill is called that because that's the shape of it, more or less - it's actually more of a crucifix shape. Basically imagine a pile of white dummies at about 60 yards away. That is the "back" pile at the top of the crucifix. Imagine a pile to left and right, slightly in front of the back pile - that is the left and right arms of the crucifix.

The goal is to be able to send the dog out, stop it on the cross-over point of the crucifix and send it either back (in the direction it was going anyway), left or right. In order to prevent the dog from anticipating the stop whistle and this affecting the run-out, I allow the dog many more times to just run straight out to the back pile and not be stopped.

For the T drill I start by training the dog to run to the back pile by moving backwards away from the pile until I reach the full 60 yards. I do this until I can come in, cold, first thing in a training session and successfully send the dog to the back pile with no building up. I also get the dog used to sitting at the cross point of the crucifix and sending it back to the same pile from there. This just helps with the back cast. When that's going well, I teach the left - I sit the dog at the cross over point and send left, to the left pile. (Which is only about 30 yards away.) After that, I do right. I would only do one direction per session, to prevent the dog from getting the directions confused.

When the dog can run back, left and right to piles separately, I would combine them - at the moment all this is starting with the dog sitting in the cross over. Only when that's going well, would I introduce the run out to the back pile from the 60 yards, the whistle sit at the cross point and the cast to left, right or back. I just want to see the dog get each direction right, first time, beginning from a run out by my side.

This drill takes a long long time to do without pressure. In the US, the dog would be forced if it no-goed, popped, etc - to ensure the dog is confident and so fully understands, without the use of pressure, it takes a lot longer.

The other point is that the dummy piles should be visible for this drill and if you have long grass or slight contours in the landscape, it helps to mark the piles with a white fence post so the dog runs to that.

Finncally

Josie,

Use the same or similar method myself, I tend to call it a 3 way Split,
In fact we had this as one of the tests in the Highland Group Puppy WT last weekend.

Had to read through the post a couple of times, incase you'd missed an important part, but its in there, Very Happy

The pup will connect the back command with the sight of a dummy being thrown, and may not go back unless it see's the dummy, so Its important to do a few, very, short blinds, increasing the distance over a few days, making sure the dog knows "back" means back not "pick up" before starting on the T or 3 way.

If you want to you can also use the same process, to get the dog to go 45 degrees left, 45 degrees right. A 5 way split. Shocked

Claire

So is there any point in training for long distance blind retrieves then? I thought there was but I'll gladly stop if there isn't Confused

Whistle can be sent for different dummies that have been thrown in different directions. The problem I have is when sending her out for a blind and she goes off in the wrong direction, I cannot seem to get her to understand my commands when I try to point her in the right direction. I have to say that to some extent I want her to find the dummy or bird on her own accord without much, if any, direction from me, but I appreciate that I also need her to be able to take direction when it is needed.

I do use the "there" command and she appears to understand this, but then on the occasion I mentioned above, even when she was in the area of the dummy and I shouted "there" she didn't stop but continued to run on which made me think she didn't understand me afterall Confused

Finncally · Re: Casting at long distances

windem bang

Hi Claire, there is a point to training for 150 yard blinds if you have a labrador or if you want to run a H.P.R. in tests. Not even once have I seen a 150 yard blind retrieve required in a H.P.R. Trial - not even when we had Championships for our breeds. I cannot say it has never happened or will never happen but I wouldn't knock my pan in or unneccessarily worry an otherwise good dog about handling at that kind of distance.

I too use very similar training methods to those Josie detailed. Nobody ever gave those methods names when I trained labs but we certainly did that type of training. I still do but I tailor them to suit the individual dog and my present needs. I'm pretty sure Josie does the same, some U.S. training methods don't suit us too well in their original form.

If training to that standard greatly interests you then do it for it is very interesting or at least I find it so but in real life it is often quicker and much quieter just to take the dog near to the fall and quietly work it into the wind from there. That was what happened in H.P.R. trials just a few years prior to me competing in them.

Bill T.

Lisa

This is a very interesting post and I'm learning alot! I am having similar troubles to Claire in worrying whether Blu is understanding my commands or not.
At training, we were told to call 'lost' when the dog is very near to the object but when I say it to Blu he just returns to me as if I have recalled him! I tend to notice he will find things better if I leave him to it to a certain extent. I can stop him from afar and redirect but left and right he will get but not back, unless he knows we have a done a back retrieve! Question

Should I start him with a word for him to know where it is or do I just leave him to it?

guy

don't forget the fourth direction of cast - towards you.

Casting at long distances

Closing the gap.

Re: Casting at long distances