gedtting a spaniel to retrieve

[doddsy1970 9]

I took her out this mornin and she was hunting lovely. Been working on the recall whistle and stop whistle. The recall is coming on leaps and bounds, she coming in 4/5 times where as before she would 50/50 and she wouldnt come in properly. The sit and stay isnt going well, she is constantly squirming and itching to move, I stopped after a few tries as she tucked her tail between her legs and was getting nervous, She hunted well and with me turning her and calling her back in she stayed in range 90% of the time so I am very pleased

 

 

When you have her sat rather than getting her to come to you try going to her every so often. This might reassure her that you are not going away and as such make her a bit steadier.

 

 

Thats what Im doing mate, I still can barely get more than 4-5 feet away and she wants to move

 

Thats a start........ If you were closer i would show you my dogs and what i meant.

[mick20 23]

Yes I have open palm to her and tell her to stay, she tries to creep forwards and I put her back on the exact spot. Shes very timid so I do it calmly and give her a fuss and a stroke when she stays put

 

I started sit/stay when feeding my spaniel and when he had grasped the idea that he got his food after staying put, i moved the sit/stay out in to the field. The spaniel i have at the moment is a rescue dog, so i know where you are coming from with training a nervous/timid dog.

The sit/stay technique i used was to, sit him down using the raised hand,palm facing the dog and command sit. Then take five steps back from him and repeat the command and hand signal. Once he was happy with this the next step was to walk around him keeping the same distance away and continually enforcing the hand and voice command. It works great and you can quickly move on to introducing the dummy using this technique once he has mastered the sit/stay. (Darren, at Kirkbourne Gundogs taught me this method and it worked for me)

I know different dogs require different approaches but it may be worth trying.

ATB Mick

[poppy1 0]

What a great helpful thread it has been great reading it is nice to read a good thread these days with lots of helpful people keep us all posted on how you get on mate

ATB Steve

[Lloyd90 509]

Cheers guys, I did alot of recall work with the whistle and have come on leaps and bounds, can also get her to sit n stay for a few yards not anything to brag about but progress is progress

 

Hunting nice n tight at the moment, I currently have a month off work so have lots of time to work on it Also I am throwing out tennis balls when she is hunting and when she picks them up I whistle her in with the recall so am almost getting the retrieve, shes not too keen to hand them over to me but will return and sit with a bit of encouragement so not too bad

 

Bit more work she will ok alright I think Couple of weeks ago I wasnt sure if she would make it as a gundog but things are looking up Need to introduce her to loud noises and gun shots now as she is very timid and want want to make her gun shy

[spanielman 1]

hi,get the openshaw dvds theres a couple,tells you from beginning to advance training, the guy hasn't won the spaniel and cocker championships so many times for nothing, easy to follow step by step training,good luck spanielman.