| TRAINING TITUS TO THE GUN
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This is the first instalment of my attempts to train Titus to the gun. For new visitors to the web site and those unfamiliar with Titus, he is an 18 month old Flat Coat Retriever whose exploits in basic training over the last year have attracted a great deal of fan mail! I have now decided to extend Titus' training to gun dog work and detail our progress here.
It has to be admitted that we do not have a great deal going for us. I have never trained a gun dog before so I am having to learn from scratch. A true working gundog is carefully selected from working stock and born into what becomes a way of life. But Titus comes from show stock (as a top trainer said to me, "Do you buy a Derby winner from Appleby gypsy fair?") and being a typical Flat Coat, is somewhat immature with a low boredom threshold. Most gun dogs are kennelled but Titus is very much a house dog and it is generally agreed that Flat Coats do not kennel well as they are such people-orientated dogs. But nothing ventured, nothing gained as they say… I started out by buying various books and videos and soon discovered not only was there considerably more to gun dog training than I had realised but also that there was a lot of conflicting advice. And so for the moment, I have decided to listen to just two mentors. First and foremost, I am indebted to Jeff Boston of Chatston Gundogs in Worcestershire for his invaluable help and advice in emails. This has been backed up by practical experience with George Ridley. George has no idea as to my occupation and so I have had to listen very patiently to lectures on how dogs think but the experience of being the "client" for once has been humbling and enlightening! First of all, Jeff told me that Titus had to learn "steadiness." (I have to admit that simply uttering steady and Titus in the same breath was somewhat daunting!) This involved teaching Titus to sit and stay while I circled him at about 15 yards distant. The aim was for Titus to sit still and not shuffle round on his bottom. To my surprise he grasped this quite quickly - while developing an elastic neck! - and the proof is in the accompanying picture. Titus is a natural retriever so the next stage of his training involved stopping him from retrieving. He had to learn to sit and stay while I threw dummies to the left and right of him, and finally over his head, with the command "leave it." On our first attempt, Titus raced after the dummy and proceeded to swing it gaily round his head as he pranced happily round the field. But after a relatively short while, Titus learned that this was not the point of the exercise and will now sit while the dummies go all around him. We are still at the stage where I retrieve the dummy but we shall soon progress to the time when I send him for the retrieve. At the same time, Titus has had to learn to walk to heel which was a totally new experience for him since my dogs very rarely go on the lead. Working with quite a short, gun dog slip lead Titus has learned to stick closely to my left leg, without pulling or sniffing around, as I vary our pace and turn left or right. He has also had to learn to sit as soon as I stop which I taught him by saying "sit" initially and raising my hand. He now understands that a raised hand means "sit" and I no longer have to use the verbal command. Nine times out of ten, Titus sits automatically but on the tenth occasion I have to show him my hand. At our first lesson, George asked me to show him how I recalled Titus with the whistle. Titus let me down beautifully! Instead of returning to me, he decided he had had enough of doing what he was told and started careering gleefully around the field until George caught up with him, growled at him and shook him violently by the folds around his neck. Having always come back with alacrity, Titus' recall is actually getting worse but Jeff's advice is to work harder, lots more encouragement and plenty of praise - so we are working on it. Titus is better at the "stop" whistle - which consists of one short, sharp blast as opposed to several pips for the recall - and will usually stop at once. The hardest part of all the advice from both Jeff and George is that Titus should no longer be allowed to run free. I now understand the reason for this but for those who do not, I can do no better than to quote Jeff's first class explanation: "Titus has spent his life being moulded to fit in with family life, he is there to be enjoyed, to take walks, to play games with, he is allowed to run free and investigate anything that interests him, his training has been a process of slowly encouraging him to be obedient so that life in general is stress free and quite a lot of fun. The life of a trainee gundog is different. My Labradors live in kennels and never come into the house. During their early life they are not allowed any free running outside the two large exercise runs I have for them. As such they learn from an early age to cope with periods of inactivity, but when they are taken out for training it is for them the best thing in the world. The training is quite regimented and progressive and gives them masses of exercise. It continuously stimulates their mental capacity and focuses their mind on the working relationship with their handler. So to allow a dog to run free doing its own thing one minute and then expect him to respond to whistles and commands the next is a contradiction that few dogs can easily cope with." Any lingering doubts that I might have had that this regime was cruel or unfair were quickly dispelled when I joined George and seven other handlers on a walked-up shoot. The dogs comprised five retrievers - all of whom were trialling dogs - and three Spaniels. It was fascinating to see the retrievers walking closely to heel until they were commanded to retrieve the game from quite a distance, by their handler simply pointing the finger. A short blast on the whistle caused the dog to stop and look at his handler who then indicated whether he should go left, right or back. Some of the dogs obviously had better noses than others and found the game with few directions from the handler, while others needed more help. On several occasions, the dogs were working out of sight of the handler, with the another handler passing on directions via a radio. Watching the dog eventually return with the bird, bursting with pride, was indeed impressive. But my fond dreams of Titus working to this standard were quickly dashed by George who pointed out that it was highly unlikely, thanks to his breed and breeding (or lack of!). But at least it gave me a good idea of the levels of control and obedience I am aiming for. However I was concerned to see one handler beating the living daylights out of his Springer who had an unfortunate tendency to chase rabbits. It was interesting to see that such a violent approach had absolutely no effect at all: the Springer was away after the very next rabbit. On our lesson, George hit Titus with first the lead and then his glove which upset me since (a) I thought it unnecessary and (b) I didn't think Titus understood what he had done wrong. But physical punishment is not universal amongst gun dog handlers. In fact, Jeff reassures me that, in his view, hitting a dog is totally unacceptable and "punishment need only be to the extent that your dog understands you are not happy with something." The initiation into gun dog training has been enjoyable and fascinating, involving a steep learning curve. But as Jeff says, "Anything that Titus learns is a step in the right direction and it all takes time." I am a naturally impatient person but I am determined to learn from the mistakes of a friend of mine who rushed the training of his own Lab so that Jessie, while an enthusiastic retriever, is inclined to commit the cardinal sin of "breaking" as soon as the shot is fired. Titus and I have nine months before the season starts, plenty of time in which to progress slowly but surely. So watch this space! Deborah Bragg [Titus Part 1] [Titus Part 2] [Titus Part 3][Titus Part 4] [Titus Part 5]
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