Interview with Mike Lardy
Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:13 pm
From the latest issue ofRetriever Journal
Training with Mike Lardy
Perspectives from Across the Pond
What I learned about training and Labs from competing and hunting in England.
An interview with Mike Lardy
You’ve had the opportunity to see Labs work in England a couple times over the last two years, both in competition and hunting. Tell us about your experiences and what you’ve learned.
First off all, I’ll be making generalizations based on the average of what I’ve seen. I know that there are individuals on both sides of the ocean who break stereotypes.
My first trip to the United Kingdom was as captain of the team that competed in the International Gundog Event, and we got to see Labs from all over the UK and from Europe as well. I was impressed with the quality of the dog work - they were attractive, they ran hard, they did nice work with good style. But I also learned that their tasks are considerably different from ours, and the primary difference between our competitions and theirs is the water work. They simply aren’t required to make multiple retrieves at any kind of distance or through demanding conditions on water.
The other occasion I got to go over for recently was to do some shooting, and I was able to witness a number of Labradors doing their picking-up job after a driven shoot. And, again, this is a different kind of hunting than what we do in North America, and although they do some rough shooting – which is flushing and shooting the way we do – a lot of the retriever work is picking up after a driven shoot.
The way we hunt and the way they shoot is so different, it’s not surprising that our retrievers are also a little different. For example, on a driven shoot, a line of guns might shoot 200 times on one drive, and there might be 40 or 50 birds down. If you have a Lab with super-high desire, they’re going to go nuts in that situation – it’s just too much.
Although many were on leads, their dogs were very calm, some of them even lying down – they were watching what was going on with interest, but I would describe them all as quite calm with guns going off and birds raining down, some hitting the ground 10 yards away from the dogs.
So how would a British Lab fit over here in the States for the typical hunter?
If I were going to be hunting in a situation where there were a ton of birds and constant action, like in some of the South Dakota hot spots, I would want a dog like the average British dog. But our upland dogs have to search for game in addition to just retrieving, and in many areas they may have to search a long time before they find a bird.
North American water fowling can be particularly demanding. I’m not sure the British Labs would have the guts for it. Oh sure, if I were just ducking hunting opening day and dropping a few birds in the decoys or hunting easy potholes in the prairie with a lot of birds falling all around, a quiet dog would be great. But if you’re going to be on the Snake River or a wild rice swamp or hunting all season long doing layout hunts for divers in Lake Michigan, I don’t think those dogs would cut the muster.
With regards to the British Labs being calm while birds are raining down and guns going off compared to the high-desire, “gung-ho-ness†of the American dog, does that, in turn, lead to the necessity of more training on things like steadiness in the American dog?
I think the American type of hunting dog requires more training, but it’s more basic than that, when contrasting American and British Labs. Yes, the way we hunt is different, but there are also differences in the way we train that contribute as well.
Our dogs are raised in what you could call a “ready, set, go†atmosphere – they’re in the crate in the back of the car by themselves, you let them out, you Lethem exercise for a minute, you put the collar on them, then you get in the holding blind or go to the line, and it’s go-go-go. And the dog gets to know the routine: I get out, I get birds. There’s this whole “ready, set, go†buildup.
Most of the time in England, I saw multiple dogs loose in the back of the vehicles. They get out all the time, not just when they’re going to be worked; and multiple dogs are worked at a time, so that when you bring out four or five dogs, only one of them is going to make the retrieve. They don’t quite have that “ready, set, go†attitude.
We noticed that when we were training our American dogs for the International Gundog Event, that their attitude started to change after we began to train differently. We began taking all the dogs out together, walking across the fields, and setting up various test as we went along. In the beginning, our dogs were super keyed-up, thinking that they were about to work; but as time went by, they became more and more passive about it, and their expectation was, Well, the next one probably isn’t for me. So they became much calmer about the whole thing.
I should also mention that their dogs are not exposed to birds at quite such an early age – few people even keep birds for training. They may even take a young dog to a shoot and not let them pick up any birds. My impression is that their dogs are very obedient and steady on dummies before they get much exposure to real birds. This could also contribute to a calmer work attitude.
So I think that some of the differences in the dogs are related to the whole way that we train and hunt, versus the way they train and hunt.
Did you notice that when your American dogs began to have that attitude – that the next one probably wasn’t going to be theirs – that it lead to a diminishing of their drive or skills?
They never lost interest; they were always observing and watching, but they had less of a hair trigger.
So someone is getting a new pup – what advice would you give them based on what you’ve learned?
When selecting a litter to pick a puppy from, it really boils down to what you intend to use your dog for, and I view it as sort of a consumer – driven selection: If you’re going to hunt pheasants where there are just unbelievable numbers of birds, you probably don’t want a Lab out of some hot field trial lines – a British type Lab might be better. Conversely, if you’re going to hunt waterfowl in a wild rice marsh or pheasants in Michigan or Wisconsin where you have to hunt hard for 45 minutes before you ever flush a bird, you probably do want a very good American field trial or hunting line. However, you’ve got to know the sire and dam and the nature of the dogs in the pedigree of any prospective litter. Individual differences are often much greater than these broad generalities of British versus American Labs.
One of the things I gained from going over there, both for competition and hunting, is that if I were training young dogs, I would try to change my routine to reduce that “ready, set, go†atmosphere, especially for hunting. For field trials, you have to have a dog that’s really keen and ready to go.
But if I were training for hunting, I would do more training in which the dog is going in the field and not retrieving. I would also do more work in which the dog has to walk at heel or at least respond to my commands while out on a walk away from a hunting environment; and I’d do more training where multiple dogs came up but only one got to do the mark. I’d get them out of the car for a long period of time before they went to the line to get a bird, just to try to reduce that go-go-go atmosphere.
I’d also put a bigger emphasis on heeling off-lead, without commands, so that the dog was more automatic and would naturally fall into the proper position. The European dogs we observed did a better job at that. Our dog’s heel, but we tell them to heel about every 15 seconds! Their dogs heel automatically, and I think if I were training young dogs again, I would conclude my yard work with teaching automatic heeling in a wide variety of environments.
Training with Mike Lardy
Perspectives from Across the Pond
What I learned about training and Labs from competing and hunting in England.
An interview with Mike Lardy
You’ve had the opportunity to see Labs work in England a couple times over the last two years, both in competition and hunting. Tell us about your experiences and what you’ve learned.
First off all, I’ll be making generalizations based on the average of what I’ve seen. I know that there are individuals on both sides of the ocean who break stereotypes.
My first trip to the United Kingdom was as captain of the team that competed in the International Gundog Event, and we got to see Labs from all over the UK and from Europe as well. I was impressed with the quality of the dog work - they were attractive, they ran hard, they did nice work with good style. But I also learned that their tasks are considerably different from ours, and the primary difference between our competitions and theirs is the water work. They simply aren’t required to make multiple retrieves at any kind of distance or through demanding conditions on water.
The other occasion I got to go over for recently was to do some shooting, and I was able to witness a number of Labradors doing their picking-up job after a driven shoot. And, again, this is a different kind of hunting than what we do in North America, and although they do some rough shooting – which is flushing and shooting the way we do – a lot of the retriever work is picking up after a driven shoot.
The way we hunt and the way they shoot is so different, it’s not surprising that our retrievers are also a little different. For example, on a driven shoot, a line of guns might shoot 200 times on one drive, and there might be 40 or 50 birds down. If you have a Lab with super-high desire, they’re going to go nuts in that situation – it’s just too much.
Although many were on leads, their dogs were very calm, some of them even lying down – they were watching what was going on with interest, but I would describe them all as quite calm with guns going off and birds raining down, some hitting the ground 10 yards away from the dogs.
So how would a British Lab fit over here in the States for the typical hunter?
If I were going to be hunting in a situation where there were a ton of birds and constant action, like in some of the South Dakota hot spots, I would want a dog like the average British dog. But our upland dogs have to search for game in addition to just retrieving, and in many areas they may have to search a long time before they find a bird.
North American water fowling can be particularly demanding. I’m not sure the British Labs would have the guts for it. Oh sure, if I were just ducking hunting opening day and dropping a few birds in the decoys or hunting easy potholes in the prairie with a lot of birds falling all around, a quiet dog would be great. But if you’re going to be on the Snake River or a wild rice swamp or hunting all season long doing layout hunts for divers in Lake Michigan, I don’t think those dogs would cut the muster.
With regards to the British Labs being calm while birds are raining down and guns going off compared to the high-desire, “gung-ho-ness†of the American dog, does that, in turn, lead to the necessity of more training on things like steadiness in the American dog?
I think the American type of hunting dog requires more training, but it’s more basic than that, when contrasting American and British Labs. Yes, the way we hunt is different, but there are also differences in the way we train that contribute as well.
Our dogs are raised in what you could call a “ready, set, go†atmosphere – they’re in the crate in the back of the car by themselves, you let them out, you Lethem exercise for a minute, you put the collar on them, then you get in the holding blind or go to the line, and it’s go-go-go. And the dog gets to know the routine: I get out, I get birds. There’s this whole “ready, set, go†buildup.
Most of the time in England, I saw multiple dogs loose in the back of the vehicles. They get out all the time, not just when they’re going to be worked; and multiple dogs are worked at a time, so that when you bring out four or five dogs, only one of them is going to make the retrieve. They don’t quite have that “ready, set, go†attitude.
We noticed that when we were training our American dogs for the International Gundog Event, that their attitude started to change after we began to train differently. We began taking all the dogs out together, walking across the fields, and setting up various test as we went along. In the beginning, our dogs were super keyed-up, thinking that they were about to work; but as time went by, they became more and more passive about it, and their expectation was, Well, the next one probably isn’t for me. So they became much calmer about the whole thing.
I should also mention that their dogs are not exposed to birds at quite such an early age – few people even keep birds for training. They may even take a young dog to a shoot and not let them pick up any birds. My impression is that their dogs are very obedient and steady on dummies before they get much exposure to real birds. This could also contribute to a calmer work attitude.
So I think that some of the differences in the dogs are related to the whole way that we train and hunt, versus the way they train and hunt.
Did you notice that when your American dogs began to have that attitude – that the next one probably wasn’t going to be theirs – that it lead to a diminishing of their drive or skills?
They never lost interest; they were always observing and watching, but they had less of a hair trigger.
So someone is getting a new pup – what advice would you give them based on what you’ve learned?
When selecting a litter to pick a puppy from, it really boils down to what you intend to use your dog for, and I view it as sort of a consumer – driven selection: If you’re going to hunt pheasants where there are just unbelievable numbers of birds, you probably don’t want a Lab out of some hot field trial lines – a British type Lab might be better. Conversely, if you’re going to hunt waterfowl in a wild rice marsh or pheasants in Michigan or Wisconsin where you have to hunt hard for 45 minutes before you ever flush a bird, you probably do want a very good American field trial or hunting line. However, you’ve got to know the sire and dam and the nature of the dogs in the pedigree of any prospective litter. Individual differences are often much greater than these broad generalities of British versus American Labs.
One of the things I gained from going over there, both for competition and hunting, is that if I were training young dogs, I would try to change my routine to reduce that “ready, set, go†atmosphere, especially for hunting. For field trials, you have to have a dog that’s really keen and ready to go.
But if I were training for hunting, I would do more training in which the dog is going in the field and not retrieving. I would also do more work in which the dog has to walk at heel or at least respond to my commands while out on a walk away from a hunting environment; and I’d do more training where multiple dogs came up but only one got to do the mark. I’d get them out of the car for a long period of time before they went to the line to get a bird, just to try to reduce that go-go-go atmosphere.
I’d also put a bigger emphasis on heeling off-lead, without commands, so that the dog was more automatic and would naturally fall into the proper position. The European dogs we observed did a better job at that. Our dog’s heel, but we tell them to heel about every 15 seconds! Their dogs heel automatically, and I think if I were training young dogs again, I would conclude my yard work with teaching automatic heeling in a wide variety of environments.
on a serious note, glad to see lardy mention and advise a little different approach with young dogs. that wham, bam, thank ya mam, day after day, can create a hair trigger for sure.