Training not Testing – Am I more ph-antastic than a pheasant?
Something we mention quite a lot in our classes and training club is the difference between training and testing, and why we should aim to train majority of the time and rarely test our dogs.
One of the main reasons for this is because in training we should be helping our dog to succeed and get the small tasks right, so that they (and we) gain in confidence and can continue to build on the small successes. It goes back to the age-old saying ‘don’t run before you can walk’.
This is especially important with puppies, who have everything to learn and all whilst going through some challenging times as they develop from young puppies to adolescents, and finally to adulthood.
One of the areas that I believe is especially important when it comes to “training, not testing” is recall. Recall is such an important skill for so many reasons, but it is something we can easily get wrong if we give our dogs too many ‘testing’ opportunities and not enough practice.
Fred, my Golden Retriever pup, is now approaching 11months – that lovely teenage stage.
Apart from in our secure dog walking field, The Potterings, he hasn’t been fully off-lead (FYI this photograph has his lead edited out), simply because I don’t trust him enough to ‘test’ his recall yet. He has been on a 10metre long-line when on walks since puppyhood and on occasions, when there are minimal distractions, I have let the lead trail to give him a little more freedom and to provide a very mini-test to see how things go. This mini-test has been when there are no people or other dogs around, just natural distractions and more distance. Over time I will continue to practise with more distractions and eventually I hope we will be in a position to give him more off-lead time.
Our aim is to train for the ‘what if’ situations, so that if something unexpected happens we have a good chance of our dog doing what we ask of them.
Today, we encountered a ‘what if’ and had to test Fred’s recall.
I was at our training venue with Fred on the lead and I was distracted holding things in my hand whilst opening my car door. Unbeknownst to me, a pheasant popped out from behind the hedge and Fred spotted it. He pulled towards it, because I was holding so many things in my hand and only had loose hold of the lead, he pulled it right out of my hand. And off he went, running full pelt after the pheasant – a good 75m away from me and out of sight!
You can imagine how I felt, initially, oh ****, then my rationalising brain kicked in – he has his harness/tag/lead on, there are many fences around, he can’t go too far, he knows where he is, he normally automatically heads to the barn door. I put my things in the car and first checked the barn door – no Fred - I then went back to where he ran from and called his name in my most excited ‘I’m super fun’ voice and after a few seconds he came hurtling back – clearly he didn’t catch the pheasant! He had however had an amazing time, so got nearly back to me and then began to go back to the pheasant. I called him again and I ran away from, just like we do in class – he chased me – we had fun, a playful cuddle, I grabbed the lead and breathed a HUGE sigh of relief!
THIS is why we train, so when these moments happen our dog has a history of knowing that we canine care-givers are amazing and fun to be with and they choose to return to us because they know we are so much more ph-antastic than a pheasant.
Positive take-aways from the experience:
Something we mention quite a lot in our classes and training club is the difference between training and testing, and why we should aim to train majority of the time and rarely test our dogs.
One of the main reasons for this is because in training we should be helping our dog to succeed and get the small tasks right, so that they (and we) gain in confidence and can continue to build on the small successes. It goes back to the age-old saying ‘don’t run before you can walk’.
This is especially important with puppies, who have everything to learn and all whilst going through some challenging times as they develop from young puppies to adolescents, and finally to adulthood.
One of the areas that I believe is especially important when it comes to “training, not testing” is recall. Recall is such an important skill for so many reasons, but it is something we can easily get wrong if we give our dogs too many ‘testing’ opportunities and not enough practice.
Fred, my Golden Retriever pup, is now approaching 11months – that lovely teenage stage.
Apart from in our secure dog walking field, The Potterings, he hasn’t been fully off-lead (FYI this photograph has his lead edited out), simply because I don’t trust him enough to ‘test’ his recall yet. He has been on a 10metre long-line when on walks since puppyhood and on occasions, when there are minimal distractions, I have let the lead trail to give him a little more freedom and to provide a very mini-test to see how things go. This mini-test has been when there are no people or other dogs around, just natural distractions and more distance. Over time I will continue to practise with more distractions and eventually I hope we will be in a position to give him more off-lead time.
Our aim is to train for the ‘what if’ situations, so that if something unexpected happens we have a good chance of our dog doing what we ask of them.
Today, we encountered a ‘what if’ and had to test Fred’s recall.
I was at our training venue with Fred on the lead and I was distracted holding things in my hand whilst opening my car door. Unbeknownst to me, a pheasant popped out from behind the hedge and Fred spotted it. He pulled towards it, because I was holding so many things in my hand and only had loose hold of the lead, he pulled it right out of my hand. And off he went, running full pelt after the pheasant – a good 75m away from me and out of sight!
You can imagine how I felt, initially, oh ****, then my rationalising brain kicked in – he has his harness/tag/lead on, there are many fences around, he can’t go too far, he knows where he is, he normally automatically heads to the barn door. I put my things in the car and first checked the barn door – no Fred - I then went back to where he ran from and called his name in my most excited ‘I’m super fun’ voice and after a few seconds he came hurtling back – clearly he didn’t catch the pheasant! He had however had an amazing time, so got nearly back to me and then began to go back to the pheasant. I called him again and I ran away from, just like we do in class – he chased me – we had fun, a playful cuddle, I grabbed the lead and breathed a HUGE sigh of relief!
THIS is why we train, so when these moments happen our dog has a history of knowing that we canine care-givers are amazing and fun to be with and they choose to return to us because they know we are so much more ph-antastic than a pheasant.
Positive take-aways from the experience:
- There’s some gundog blood in my show Golden-Retriever, maybe he isn’t too laid-back to benefit from some gundog work
- Our training practice paid off
- Time to practise our recall (on a long-line) around pheasants/birds so he doesn’t chase again
- It’s definitely not time to go fully off-lead yet