OK-Do I just give up?

[GulfCoast]

I have a 18 month old female lab. British dog, from a great line, for what its worth. Super great house dog. She has spent many, many, many months with a pro, and I train with her every day. We walk several miles a day at "heel", too. The dog is supposed to be trained to hand signals, steady to shot, the whole 9 yards. Funny thing is, the dog is really good on bumpers, stop whistle and hand signals in the water, all fine. Steady on the bumpers, everything is fine. Ignores decoys and swims through them to get the mark. Responds to verbal and whistle recall. Does great with thawed ducks in drills. We did have a little trouble with her spinning on "back" but got that worked out. I gotta blame that one on me, she saw me throw the bumper one too many times after Katrina where we could only work in my little back yard. So, she does really well for a hunting style dog working with vinyl and rubber. Seriously.

Until you take her hunting. I have never seen anything like it. Then she will just go breserk, keyed up like on meth, pull out of her collar first thing, dive into the water, grab a decoy, swim off with it. Will not keep out of the water unless tied. Even then she will try to pull out of her collar and/or chew through the rope to get in the damn water. Just quivering with manic energy. Ignores stop whistle in all of this, when she comes back, if she thinks I can get to her for a correction, she lowers her head and hauls booty the other way. Will not respond to "come," "stop," you name it. Just hauls booty. Will also grab a duck and haul booty and start munching. Gotta quit hunting and chase her down. Then, if you take her off and do drills right then, as has been suggested to me, everything is cool. Go back hunting, the dog does NUTS again.

I have sent her back a couple times to the trainer about this psycho manic energy, and supposedly, he can hunt her and there are no problems (which I cannot really believe, since my hunting partners are all amazed by the Jeckel and Hyde deal with this otherwise really nice well mannered dog.) He did experiance this at first, but figures it is worked out. This weekend, more of the same craziness.

So, what the hell do I do? She is not collar conditioned, as her trainer does not believe in them. I wonder if it will do any good to start down that road? Can you collar condition a pretty grown dog? Why does my dog go manic quivering adrenilzed psycho in a hunting situation. And I can set up "fake hunts" with decoys and stuff and she will do fine, although I have never shot flyers over her. Trainer has.)

I am really sad about this, since it breaks my heart to have a dog I have never mistreated and done nothing but love lower her head and run from me when hunting. Or eat a damn duck. Yet she LOVES to train with bumpers.

Help? (This post is NOT meant to defame the trainer in any way, which is why I have not put in the name. I wonder if it would do me any good to even pay for any more training to anyone).

[goosebruce]

I'd suggest a hunt with your trainer. Dog is obviously boiling over with excitement, if dude says he can hunt her without an issue, you need to see what he is doing. Its pretty normal for a dog to be more jacked up on a hunt, its not normal for them to eat ducks or water freak like that. Obviously the excitment is overcoming her obedience. Throwing out some decoys isnt like a hunt.. throw out some decoys, use live birds, and about a dozen dogs running before she does, that'll let you see the jeckel and hyde in action. Is collar condtioning the answer, I cant answer that because shes obviously trained a different way... adding a collar to the backside will require her learning to deal with pressure and thencollar condtioned... its a lot of back tracking for a way of training you and your trainer dont normally do.

Whatever you do, quit hunting the dog and letting her freak. The more she's allowed to freak, the more pressure it will take to overcome it. Amish methods (non-collar) & british methods require very slow progression, so you dont put your dogs in situations you can't correct (i.e. remote corrections), so get ready for a slow process re-training her to deal with exicitment and still complying. B3 is very versed in british/amish methods, as well as modern collar techniques and going back to a brit trained dog and collar condtioning and what he ran into, and gator recently went back and cc'd a 4 year old dog that had been trained amish, and Im waiting to hear them weigh in on this. travis

[BamaK9]

way back when, I started out a choco dog just like yours...minus the pro. No collar at all. When he was 5yo, we hit the "wall" and couldn't really progress past the HR stage. I started working with a local pro and basically started from scratch. Collar conditioned him, redid FF, double T, BB blinds etc.

It can be done, be patient and you will reap the rewards. I would highly recommend doing this, not to knock the ol boy who trained your dog at all, but there is no substitute for having the "long arm of the law" on your side in a situation like you described.

Good luck

[GulfCoast]

I have a hunt set up with the trainer this weekend. We will see how it goes. It blows my mind she is so controlable in training and a LIVE FREAKING WIRE if we are hunting. I think I may need to train with her a dawn in the water every morning for a week and see if changing the time of day to be more like a hunt will help.

[Duck Chaser]

man, thats gotta be frustrating.. fact is, dog knows the difference between drills/bumpers/frozen birds etc... and a real hunt.

to take a dog 'out' of a hunt for drillwork, is just more seperation. tools are put in place in training/drillwork, but the known rules have to be enforced on a hunt. sure it can be done without a collar, but much harder on you and imo, the dog. that said, there's no less teaching required in a program using the collar, but your transition to the real deal could have been ironed out quickly in the beginning, if done properly.

only advice I have for now, is don't let the nonsense continue. more of that will just make it harder to get a handle on.. from the sound of it, I don't think I would take her back this year. a hard pill... but if its only getting worse, whats the point?

she's still young and sounds like she might have the desire to thrive in a modern program. definately not too late to collar condition etc, but too late this year. I'd search out a new trainer now. maybe they could evaluate the dog, or at least give you instructions on what to do with her until february. not ideal to give up a season, but this gig isn't working. you like the dog, so worth this effort imo. if it does turn around, you'll have plenty seasons down the road.

[Duck Chaser]

on the phone while travis/bama were postin and didn't see it.. good advice. the hunt with your trainer should be step #1. good luck

[Meeka]

I'll take her

I think the OB / foundation is not as strong as you think AND I think the dog very well may hunt will with T. If she does, but doesn't with you, the OB works for him then that means the OB works for him but not you. If that is the case, it is because she works well for him because she is trying to please or comply with him, and the commands do not have same importance to her as when someone other that T gives them. For some reason.

Let me tell you a story. I was lucky enough to have someone offer to run Sharkey for me this past fall. Sharkey has his faults and limitations due to his trainer and methods, or lack thereof,and training time limited by profession and family. But he has done excellent work for me at times. Anyway, he is where you want your dog to be, because the hunt is issue free. Like when you take someone with you who has hunted the way you hunt for a long time, versus taking a newbie, if you know what I mean.

So the day before the hunt test, he was taken out with the person, who will ID himself if he wants, and I was there and Sharkey just about would not even go with him. He was ignoring known commands of heel and here. Then, even for fun bumpers, he would ignore the send command. Long story short was he really did not want to work for someone else.

So he was encouraged to get excited and enjoy himself and it didn't work the first day of the test, but he somehow passed a finished test. The second day, all hell broke loose, he broke and also flat out switched on a diversion. Things that he is capable of deep down inside of him but that usually do not surface with me.

That guy thinks that he would be a different dog and work differently if he had been trained differently and with a collar. And I am quiet sure he is right and I have often considered going back and redoing training with a collar or letting someone else do it. But at the same time, I know that I could get everything I want out of him as far as test performance by investing the time. All that being said, he is what I wanted when I got him and more and he is what I think what you want in your dog.

The one difference in very similar dogs is that Sharkey has been trained exclusively by me and I feel that is important. Of course lots of people farm out the training and get excellent results. But what was said to me is that Sharkey wants to please me because of our bond. And his training is based on wanting to please and choices. Most dogs are not trained exclusively that way. This is what was explained to me and I think it may be true.

You could try a training group to simulate the excitement. But what I recomend is that YOU take her back to the beginning and try to go from A-Z. It should go quickly because she has done it before, I guess. Or you could bring her to the camp and leave her with me!

[GulfCoast]

Dave: I knew I could count on you, dogg! She will obey him or me like a robot on bumpers. It is SO frusterating. I will get it fixed one way or another.

[B3]

GC,

First of all there are worse problems to have like not wanting to get in the water or no interest in ducks. How is she on ducks in training? Has she ever water freaked in training? i.e. not want to get out of the pond to come back to you?

Its difficult to say for sure without seeing your dog but it could be a simple OB issue where she does not transfer the authority of the trainer to you-thats common. She may know that getting in the water means freedom from corrections.

It could be more than that though. It could be that the dog is truly boiling over and can't help it. I would be worried about applying pressure in this case.

I would not take her hunting right now. The first thing to do when your stuck in a hole is quit digging. Keep in mind that there is a huge gulf between yard bumpers and a duck hunt. In the "British" program their "transition" is making yard training more and more similar to an actual hunt. At Wildrose they will typically set up more and more realistic "hunts" for their young dogs until it is indistinguishable from the real thing.

If you don't have their video and are training in their style, then the Wildrose DVD would likely be helpful. It shows the way they train but if this is more than just an incomplete transition of OB to a hunting situation you'll need more help most likely.

As far as Brit dogs not taking to the collar I don't agree. There is a wide variation among the dogs but I took my brit through the collar program at age 2 and recently trained a brit pup for a friend and he does fine with a collar program as well.

It sounds like you have a good relationship with your trainer and I bet ya'll can work it out. Remember there are plenty of folks here to help with ideas.

Good luck,

Bill

[GulfCoast]

Never water freaked in training. But she is a "swimmer." She will swim any chance she gets, much more than any other lab I have had or seen. Because of this, we use water as a "distraction" when doing drills a lot. We let her go swim in the sound a couple nights a week to burn off energy, and then do some swim by drills. I may need to stop doing that "free swim" and see if it helps.

I sure hate to lay off hunting her for another year. Guess I may have to, though.

My "british dog" has more piss and vinegar than a lot of american labs I have seen. I think there must have been a yankee lab that snuck in on mama while pops was off in London.

[B3]

Sounds a lot like my little brit female. I know its not the style your training, but FF and a big dose of the Lardy program really turned her into a nice water dog. I'd definitely ditch the free swimming or free anything. She likely sees the water as a no rules zone where she calls the shots and there are no consequences-the longer she stays in the longer she is in control.

Just a guess

Bill

[Meeka]

Bill may have hit the nail on the head, for at least part of the problem. Freedom = free swim. So there is her motivation. But it is not the problem. The problem is ignoring commands.

[goosebruce]

BTW, big congrats to b3 for the jam this weekendy.

I was meeka's handler, no problem telling anyone that. And I never thought anything bad about the sharkster... hes a good dog. His work saturday while might have been a lil unconventional, was solid. Sunday he showed me a lot of the things he does is a put on... thats all I ever wanted to get across. Nothing wrong with that a bit, and the #1 measure of a dog is how happy he makes his owner. In this case, sharkey is da man! travis

[goosebruce]

oh, and gc, if you do decide to just give up, lemme know. I'll buy here cheap and give her a good home! hehe. travis

[GulfCoast]

If I do give up, she is already a wonderful housepet, from which my wife would never willingly be parted. Question is, do I rehab this one, or start over. Rehab is a LOT cheaper!