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killerloop
MinneSNOWta

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03/12/2006 2:19 AM	Alert
real funny ys it's there now wa not b4

CPK
Eminence,In

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03/12/2006 6:24 AM	Alert
Thanks guys,now I have an edit button too.... That was'nt there before.

SEMPER-FI Dont be a Liberal

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03/13/2006 4:06 AM	Alert
Tom, I think this thread got away from your original question. Based on what you described you've got a nice dog, but the whoa'ing on birds is out of context. Your dog understands standing around your yard or wherever your train, but how that applies to the delightful live birds he finds doesn't apply in his thinking, though you are very clear on it. I like to condition my dogs to standing motionless in the presence of live birds walking, flushing, etc. If you aren't in a position to do that, I'd be careful about just dropping it on him in the field out of context. Some dogs can handle that, and though it says to do that in the book you refer to, we have completely changed how we use whoa, and we don't do it that way any longer. Instead ,let him learn that if he goes in on them he looses them. If he doesn't he'll get them. He's telling you he doesn't 'get it' when you use whoa, so listen to that response and do not sacrifiece his confidence on finding birds for you. Julie

Tom

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03/13/2006 11:42 AM	Alert
Julie- As usual, you hit the nail on the head. The problem with the training is that he doesn't connect it to birds. I have Trigger trained now so that when I say whoa he freezes. He will pull back on the leash if I try to pull him away after I tell him whoa. I even whoa'd him on top of his 55 gallon drum yesterday. He stood firm and tall and looked completely foolish. Anyway, as luck would have it, I took him for a run long run through some nearby fields yesterday, and he locked up on a crow. I immediately said "whoa" to him. I don't think he even heard me at first, he was so focused. I said whoa again, and he just sat down and kept staring at the bird until it lost patience and flew away and I released him. I suspect that is what will happen when I take him to the hunting preserve. In terms of your suggestion, I have two problems with only shooting birds when he freezes up and whoas: (1) relying on my shooting abilities to consistently train Trigger just isn't realistic; (2) I only have access to birds when I am paying $15 or $20 a piece for them, so letting them fly away gets expensive fast. . .

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03/14/2006 3:50 AM	Alert
Maybe on the crow thing you should have said nothing and let him learn the fly away thing himself without any intervention. Not comfortable for a lot of folks to do I know. If you can, carry a dead bird in your vest and make sure he gets the 'shot bird' when he needs to, even if you miss on an occasion. What I think I am hearing here is a bit of an adversarial set up. He wins if he tries hard enough, you win if you can make him stay. When you set up the adversary type situation, you always have that. That is why there is the check cord way a lot of people like to use, because it assures they will prevail. Obviously that is effective for a number of folks. I must have a bunch of softies because I have gone about it differently. If my dogs want to go in on a bird, they do. They don't get the retrieve and they don't even get to chase. Pretty soon the fun is gone, but when they show me good effort on the steadiness, they get the bird. When you don't have many birds to train on, and it's that expensive, you're in a difficult situation. Even so, I'd teach him he gets the good stuff when he does his thing right, and doesn't when he doesn't, and there is no yelling or correction. He's just waiting for correction, even anticipating it. It'll be hard to hunt a wild bird if he's so concerned with what you're going to do...

Doc_E
N.E. WA state

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03/14/2006 7:16 AM	Alert
I fully understand that a lot of folks don't like to use pigeons in training, but even pigeons are better than no birds at all (and they gotta be better than $15 - $20 birds that fly away). If I were in your situation, I'd get some pigeons and 'card' them. .

Doc E and Cujo Casey boy.

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03/14/2006 7:45 AM	Alert
I agree.

Doc_E
N.E. WA state

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03/14/2006 7:49 AM	Alert
Posted By APLA Secretary on 03/14/2006 7:45 AM I agree. .

Doc E and Cujo Casey boy.

LuckyNash
Brigham, Utah

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03/14/2006 8:03 AM	Alert
Here is a link for a helpful article on carding pigeons. http://www.thecheckcord.com/archives/cbirds.html

Tom

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03/14/2006 11:43 AM	Alert
I wish it was that easy. Even pigeons are impossible to get commercially in the Northeast. I got a trap last year to get them myself. My wife, of course, thought I was crazy. Anyway, after numerous discussions under bridges with homeless animal lovers, curious police stopping to investigate me, and -- worst of all -- lousy luck convincing birds to get in, I finally gave up.

Doc_E
N.E. WA state

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03/14/2006 11:55 AM	Alert
Tom, Do you belong to a Hunting Retriever Club? They often have pigeons left over from training days or picnic tests........Or they can put you in touch with somebody who has pigeons. .

Doc E and Cujo Casey boy.

hooligan
Southern California and Vancouver Island

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03/14/2006 2:28 PM	Alert
Not sure where you live, Tom. Sources for pigeons, and sometimes quail, can be feed stores, farm stores, big pet stores, auctions, and your newspaper classified ads. Check the bulletin boards, especially at feed and farm stores. You might only get a few at a time-but better than none...

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

labcrazy

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03/14/2006 6:58 PM	Alert
Do you have any stockyards or grain silos in your area? Most of these places will allow you to trap pigeons on their property. They hate pigeons because of the mess they make.

Jere

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03/15/2006 4:29 PM	Alert
I don't train a verbal "whoa" at all and I wouldn't use it on a dog pointing birds if I did - with one possible exception. That exception would be in the event the dog moved off point AFTER I had passed it going forward to flush the bird. Until I get in front of the dog, it is the dog's call as to move (in respnse to a moving bird, for instance) or not. I wouldn't run a dog in a test or trial until I could trust it to this degree. The "point" of a dog is an innate (geneticallly associated behavior) which the dog displays as part of its sequence of predator hunting behaviors. It is triggered by the scent, sight or sometimes sound of a bird or birds. It is its own reward and needs no human help or reinforcement. It is a total fixation on the bird in which it seems that all other environmental inputs are blocked from the dog's awareness. To penetrate that concentration is to confuse the dog. The standing on verbal "whoa" is a trained control condition. It can be made to look similar to an innate point but the trainer is unlikely to ever be able to know or totally simulate the natural triggers which elicite the natural, innate point and many are incapable of training a posture, stance and STILLNESS which mimics the innate point. Further, coupling the verbal "whoa" with natural triggers (or approximations to them which is usually done it training a "whoa point") which would ordinarily elicite a natural point generally results in a confused dog. Confused dogs flag while standing game. The use of the verbal "whoa" also causes confusion for the dog engaged in a true innate point. "What's up boss, I'm doing what my genes tell me to do - getting this bird pinned in place which may require that I move to head off its escape should it try and move away, etc. and you come along and tell me to do that silly standing thing like on that barrel," might approximate what's going through the dog's head. Confused, conflicted it flags (Wags its tail) or swings its head to give the handler attention it has been trained to give in other contexts. Many PLs are "challenged" in the innate point department. While one might "whoa point" train a strongly endowed EP and then leave it alone (shut up while the dog is pointing) for two or three year's contacts with real birds to ultimately have the dog revert from the trained behavior to its innate point; that is not at all assured with the lesser endowed PL. My preference is to train the unnatural (not innate) behaviors which are part of bird dog bird handling work and let the point and steadiness develop themselves in a process which mimics the natural process of the dog interacting with wild birds (as Julie commented with respect to badly handled birds being allowed to fly off etc). Those unnatural behaviors are backing or honoring another dog's point (though some dogs do this as an innate response to the sight of a standing dog), stopping and standing when a bird previously undetected flushes or a gunshot is heard, standing when a pointed bird is flushed, ditto when a shot is fired at such flushed bird, ditto when said bird is hit and falls to the ground. As far as a control command to stop the dog is concerned for sfety or other reasons such as handling on retrieves, I prefer, for PLs, the verbal "sit" or single whistle blast over the "whoa" and would probably train any dog of any breed that had potential for servicable retrieving work that way. My way is not the only way and I know that. Everyone is entitled to do it the way s/he feels most comfortable, but the results are not guaranteed to be those s/he wanted to begin with. Jere

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03/15/2006 7:06 PM	Alert
Hey he's back! Welcome my Alaskan friend, good to have you here! Julie

Jere

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03/16/2006 2:49 AM	Alert
Why thank you, Julie. Yes, I am "back," home that is, after a mixed winter and early by a couple of weeks. Contrasted with the last visit we had a fine time in SD in November and escaped just as the blizzard hit this time, we hunted chukars a couple of days with Willie in Nevada, with Storm giving a memorable performance (for a "meat" dog) on a wounded chukar, then the old girl, Shadow, left us north of Winnemucca, a few weeks later we got washed out of Oregon when it thawed from single digets to well above freezing, everything turned to soup and the rains began eventually to continue and continue, ... and then whole hunting thing came to a crash with 18 days left in the AZ quail season when I put my foot in the wrong spot getting off the pickup to hunt Tucker ending on the ground - broken ankle (ouch) - surgery - plate on fibula, screws holding the mess together, no weight bearing for 10 weeks when one screw can come out - no five days in NM and then five in TX with the Lubbock guys - no surprise stops in Colorado enroute to SD snow goose spectacle (will it be the last in my lifetime?). Hey it could have been different - I could be dead. But we still got to hang around the desert for a month doing nothing waiting for an inspection by the surgeon and then drive the 3640 miles home from Flagstaff last week - Monday noon to Monday noon. The change here has been REMARKABLE. Must be more posts on the new APLA site in what, three months, than on the old in its lifetime? How did ya'll manage that? Maybe I'll be watching for other changes at the APLA too. Thanks again, Jere

tigerliberty
Dundee Michigan

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03/17/2006 11:14 AM	Alert
I simply feel whoa is a reinforcement, I have seen the best pointing dogs with poor whoa training break it takes repition for the dog to learn what you want whether thru natural training or with whoa training, if you have set a good foundation it should not matter either way IMHO.

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