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Grady Istre's Blog


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WON News Column by Grady Istre

WON’s canine columnist Grady Istre was born into a family of waterfowl hunters, but as he grew up so did his passion and appreciation for any kind of bird hunting.

His knowledge of dog behavior has been gained through his 30 plus years of training both competition and hunting dogs. He takes pride in the fact that he trains the hunter as well as the dog which makes a very productive team in the field.



Monday, May 20, 2013
Using two commands
Recently, one of my clients asked me why I send my dogs on a retrieve using two different commands. It was a good question, because the dog did leave my side on both the commands. But, here’s what the client didn’t notice:  there were two different types of retrieves — marks and blinds. A “mark” is where the dog sees the bird fall, and a “blind” is when a dog is sent for a hidden bird.

For thirty years, I have used the dog’s name (for example, “Hunter”) to send him for a marked retrieve and the command “back” for a blind retrieve. Some trainers still use only “back” as a send command, for both marks and blinds. When I ran competitive dogs in field trials, I discovered that it was safer to use the dog’s name to release him on a mark, because some tests require two dogs “honor” each other (remain quietly at heel while watching the other dog go for a mark.) The danger was that the honoring dog would also go on “back” and then would be disqualified.

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I like to line up my dogs and challenge them by honoring each other.  For example, I’ll call out “Sugar,” “Flash,” or “Belle.” It’s great fun and teaches restraint.

With a little imagination, you can transfer this situation to a hunting circumstance where two dogs are in a duck blind. Think about it. If both dogs are sent to retrieve on the same command, like “back,” you may not get an edible duck when they return. Or, worse, a dog fight warranting a trip to the vet could end your hunt altogether.

?Another good reason to reserve the “back” command for blind retrieves is that it has more power than the release of the dog’s name. We teach dogs to go to a pile of dummies during basic training and they are forced to that pile on “back.” So, when the water has a skim of ice and the dog might not feel like jumping in, the remembrance of the force of the back command can overcome any hesitancy.

If you use “back” to send your dog on all retrieves, there’s another potential problem. If you’ve forced your dog to go and go and go when you say “back,” and you send him on a short marked retrieve, he could ignore the mark and keep running. The power of “back” could cancel out the desirability of that shot bird.

I have explained all the above many times to clients by using my expertly-learned Cajun gestures, which includes arms, legs and facial expressions. That is much easier than explaining the two send commands on paper.

Have fun training and hunting with your dog!

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Grady Istre’s column runs every other week and he can be reached at reibar.com
Posted By Sally On 05/20/2013 At 4:16 PM  Comments (0)  TrackBacks (0)  
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Maintaining training skills
No matter how well trained a hunting dog you have, his learned skills must be maintained throughout his entire life, otherwise it’s unlikely he will perform to his training level when taken to the field for a hunt. If you expect your dog to perform to his training level in the field, maintaining his skills is a never-ending job.

When a young dog goes home from my kennel after he has competently completed the basic training course here at Reibar, his schooling is not yet done. His owner must now learn how to maintain and /or advance the animal’s level of expertise, and that’s best done by working the dog as much as possible on different hunting scenarios, while maintaining his discipline level in the field.

Although dogs learn a great deal of their bird hunting knowledge during basic training, these skills are taught while the animal’s basic commands are being forced. Dogs tend to develop their bird hunting skills later in a more relaxed atmosphere where they can concentrate on finding or retrieving birds only. So, at some point your hunting dog must learn to obey his commands under exciting hunting conditions in the field. Then, a good trainer will instill the philosophy that a dog should learn to hunt for the team and not him self.   

When a dog graduates from his basic training course, the only field experience he has is what was gained as he was learning to take his new commands from the yard to the field. By no standard is he considered a finished dog. It’s the owner’s job to give his dog field experiences by taking him hunting, and making him perform to his training level under exciting field conditions.

Dogs don’t forget their learned skills, but they sometimes choose to fall back on the innate instincts given to them by Mother Nature instead. Given the opportunity, many hunting dogs will revert to these natural survival tendencies instead of using their skills needed to hunt for the team.

If you’ve trained the dog yourself, you may rely a great deal on your personal relationship with the animal to make him perform his learned commands in the field. In contrast, a professional dog trainer applies force to each command so that it is solid enough in the dogs mind to transfer that obedience to the dog’s owner at the completion of the training course. This is one of the advantages of having your hunting dog trained by a competent professional, because there’s more of a chance that your dog will perform a forced command than one learned through relationship.

As your dog matures and gains hunting experience season after season, he will require a getting-into-shape routine in addition to maintaining his training skills. However, just working him will both re-establish a disciplined level of hunting skills and get him into shape all at the same time.

We have no method of communicating with a dog other than to show him what is expected, and it’s up to you to do what you can to uphold your dog’s skill level.

We all have different life schedules to maintain, but developing the habit of putting in the time with your dog on your calendar is desirable. It’s best to work your dog for five minutes a day than five hours on the weekend. The function of a basic training course is to give you the tools to maintain or advance your dog, so use them to your advantage.

Have fun training.

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Grady Istre’s column appears in WON every other week and he can be reached at reibar.com
Posted By Sally On 04/24/2013 At 11:23 AM  Comments (0)  TrackBacks (0)  
Tuesday, April 02, 2013
Train now test later
Too many novice trainers want to test the results of their training long before its ready to be tested. This is one of the major traps inexperienced trainers fall into on a regular basis.

I once thought, “Well this is simple to fix, simply explain that beginner trainers test too soon,” I was of course wrong. It seems human nature is such that a person just can’t resist checking out the results of his work as quickly as possible, and I’ve discovered that only experience can trump that desire to test too soon.

A good example of this can be seen during teaching of the obedience skills that are an essential part of a hunting dog’s training. I have watched novice trainer get all bent out of shape while attempting to heel their trainee off-lead after only a week or so of teaching this command on lead; obviously, it was not quite time yet.

After only a week, a trainee probably understands the command well enough, but is not likely to submit to walking off-lead until he is a bit more disciplined in the drill. It takes time for a dog to fully accept a new command, he must first be given the time to understand what this command means to him in everyday life as well as in the field.

I work on heel and sit for almost two months before I consider the job good enough to begin demanding that my trainee performs this command under all circumstances. To keep the training moving along at an acceptable rate, I double up and teach the force fetch command at the same time as the heel and sit drill.

During the animals field training I work on teaching him to come to a proper heel and sit with a bird or bumper in his mouth. However, that usually leads to the dog spitting out the bird or bumper. I do not like to force in the field at this particular time so I simply put the bird/bumper back into the dog’s mouth, then command drop. Now the animal has no way of adding to the problem by dropping the bird, so I begin working on making him comply to the proper heel position.

As a trainer you have two choices to make your trainee choose to comply with a command: discipline or attrition/repetition. Sometimes both are needed.

I know that it’s very difficult for a novice person, who has never trained a dog, to muster up the self discipline required to give his dog sufficient time needed to make each command solid before testing to make sure the dog not only understands but complies.

So, to help you along I will leave you with the words of Uncle Frank, “So, it’s okay to make the dog meet the standard on a daily basis, but the rules do not apply to you, do they boy”? Those words have stuck with me for over 40 years; hopefully they will straighten out your training path as well.

Train Smart.

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Grady Istre’s column appears in WON every other week and he can be reached at reibar.com
Posted By Sally On 04/02/2013 At 10:46 AM  Comments (0)  TrackBacks (0)  
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Praise
Praising your dog can be a tricky thing. Used improperly, praise can lead to disobedience and lack of respect the opposite of its intent. New owner’s get so accustomed to “good dog-ing” their young pups that it becomes a habit.

Puppies can tolerate this because they are just exploring a big wide world and their innocence hasn’t allowed the idea of willfulness to intrude. But, as pups mature, they begin to get ideas of their own.  Now, the “good boy” starts to roll off a pup’s little shoulders. The word is so diluted that it no longer has much meaning because it’s such a part of the owner’s vocabulary.

When a new dog comes to me for training, I ask the owner to work him so that I can get a picture of his  relationship with his dog. These days, it’s rare to see an owner who doesn’t praise his dog incessantly. I think this may partly be a result of dog training videos where dogs seem to get tons of praise.

But, fellow trainers beware; these are professional trainers working those dogs. A professional can get away with this for two reasons:  he’s not emotionally involved with the dogs in the way an owner would be, and, he already has a high level of respect built through a large body of working that dog.

Still, praise is essential. Used sparingly, it carries a lot of weight. I often praise the dogs here at Reibar after working on a drill, by throwing “play bumpers” with lots of “hup hup”s. This gives a dog the opportunity to just cut loose and unwind. I may also shoot an exciting flyer for the dog. This lets a dog reconnect with the simple joy of retrieving; both choices are forms of praise.

Praise is useful in another way, as well.  It’s great for identifying a correct action for a dog. When a dog has repeated a wrong series of actions, and all of a sudden he figures out the right thing to do, a solid “good dog” at that moment can be powerful. It tells the dog he has figured out something terrific on his own and reinforces his correct decision.

One situation in which praise undermines training is when the trainer piles on. By that I mean that when a dog submits and takes pride in his performance, praise at that moment can cheapens his accomplishment. This usually occurs with advanced dogs at a high level of training, and it takes experience and instinct to recognize those moments. My Uncle Frank used to say; “don’t spoil it for the dog boy, he knows he’s done a good job, let it be.” Advice I still follow today.

Using praise properly takes self-control on the part of an owner/trainer. It’s a complicated subject but one very worth exploring. The application of discipline is much easier for a novice trainer to understand than is praise because discipline fits the traditional pattern of correcting misbehavior much better than praise fits the pattern of a job well done.

The trainers who use praise to better explain the meaning of a command will gain an invaluable tool that can be used for their dog’s lifetime of training.

Have fun training!

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Grady Istre articles appear in WON every other week, he can be reached at reibar.com
Posted By Sally On 03/19/2013 At 3:44 PM  Comments (0)  TrackBacks (0)  
Tuesday, March 05, 2013
Commitment
How committed are you to making your hunting dog the best he can be?  Unless you have experience in training a hunting dog, there is no way you could know the commitment involved in training a proficient gun dog.  Your dog will always be a reflection of the amount of time and energy you are willing to put into his training.

You may be surprised to know that not much time is actually needed.  It’s more beneficial to put in 20 minutes with the dog three times a week than to work with him once a month in a heavy 5 hour session with your training buddies.

However, If at all possible, it’s best to put that 20 minutes in a daily training session; however, not everyone has that kind of time to spare.

Dogs are creatures of habit. Repetition of any action creates a habit, and that’s both good and bad. Repetition of good actions will create good habits. But, conversely, repetition of an undesirable action will create a bad habit. This means that a dog left to himself will often learn bad habits, even in small matters. For example, allowing a young dog to jump up on people will quickly turn that undesirable behavior into a bad habit that will be hard to correct. But, if you work with a young dog for just a few minutes, you can teach him to sit when guests come into your home.

Now, you have created a good habit and started to build a respectful relationship from your dog. To get the very best from your hunting dog, diagramming out a training plan is a great idea.

I used to make notes after working my own dogs so that I could remember just what needed my attention most over the next week or two. You should always know what you expect to accomplish in a training session, and writing down the commands or skills to be trained is a nice way to start.

Maintaining a balanced training program is important, and that’s why a session on obedience and another for field work is helpful.

I usually started with yard work then went to the field afterwards as a reward for the dog. That way, the dog would be in a respectful frame of mind that would help calm the excitement of the bird work.

Often, shooting even one pigeon would be a significant reward for leash work in the yard. No work with your dog no matter insignificant it seems, goes unrewarded as long as your trainee is in a respectful frame of mind.

I guess what I’m trying to convey is that consistency is the key in training any dog — especially one that needs to become your partner in the field.  Building good habits through repetition while maintaining the dog’s eager attitude is a worthwhile goal that should be strived for by all who train dogs. It’s not complicated fellow trainers; all it takes is commitment.

Have fun training!

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Grady Istre’s column appears every other week in WON and he can be reached at reibar.com
Posted By Sally On 03/05/2013 At 10:47 AM  Comments (0)  TrackBacks (0)  

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