Running On

[cantona 310]

My sprocker bitch is now 6 months old and has started to run on when of the lead, she used to come to the whistle quite well but now hardly does, she has been kept away from quarry but chased a wagtail alround the field behind my house, now she sees a bird and runs like mad after it ! What do you think is best to do with her, keep her on a lead for a bit and try and train her in the garden or chase after her and stop her if I can , or what ?

[sussex 5,803]

At six months it's a pup , full of beans and every thing in the world is more interesting and needs checking out .All I was doing with mine at six months was play training , nothing was an issue , plenty of reward stuff , whistle training was all indoors and garden but not a session , l just let her get a few yds away and a few peeps called her name , reward ..and just once or twice ..I would keep her on a long lead for a while just so she can't chase but she will need exercise , might be worth pm philuk he trains a few spaniels and might be able to help ...

[Casso 1,264]

Generally on here there is a notion that a pup must be trained by 6/7 months , start as soon as it's off the bitch , sitting recall , stay, you name it , it all has to be established at a young age or the pup will grow up wild or turn out completely untrainable, it's bullshit the whole notion is bullshit

 

The trick of bringing up a social pup is not to confront or discipline until it developes reason , long after 6/7 month mark , and make yourself interesting to the pup as it grows, one of the best ways of doing this is f**k away the feeding bowl and hand feed while out on walks , it's a foolproof way of making you the most interesting thing in the world for a pup ,

All the while managing it so it can't f**k up,

 

If you confront the pup for expressing prey instinct in chasing birds you will make training the pup 10 times harder ,

By chasing the pup learns it can never catch, therefore chasing is futile,?let it go through that stage while making yourself more interesting, what ever you do don't confront the pup until it knows what you want from it , you got to show it the right thing before you discipline for the wrong , encouraging the right and ignore the wrong if you can

You have loads of time to train the pup bud , keep calm and level headed and focus the pup on you more,

[cantona 310]

Thanks for the advice which makes sense Sussex, casso, how often should I get the dog to sit to whistle and cone back to whistle though? Once or twice a day more or less, I've only had her a month and she had one nothing with her last owner, maybe 2 r 3 retrieves a day?