| | | | | |  |  | | Rob Barlow |
Gundogs & E-Collarsby Rob Barlow
Ten years ago, if someone had told me that the only way to train a gundog was with the aid of an electronic training device, I would have laughed and bet the farm against it. Good thing I didn’t bet! Not that one needs an e-collar to do this, it just speeds things up a bit. What used to take three to four months now takes six to eight weeks depending on the dog. Technology has advanced tremendously in the last few years. The once barbaric shock collar is now a finesse-training tool. There are several collar manufacturers, as well as many dealers. One of the most frequently asked questions is “What collar should I buy?” The old line you get what you pay for still holds true. Although most novice trainers don’t require the advanced collars that most pros use, a good quality collar is going to run around $200.00 to $250.00. A collar in this price range should have multiple stimulation levels as well as continuous and momentary stimulation modes. After you have made a choice and purchased the collar of your choice please read the manual that comes with it. Read it twice and familiarize yourself with the operation of the collar.
At first I was going to go into a detailed article covering most aspects and phases of e-collar training. But after some thought, I decided to go through a program that works for most dogs regardless of the breed type. The age that I would start the dog will vary according to the dog’s temperament, but generally between six to eight months old.
For the first couple of weeks, I work on retrieving as well as taking the dog for short walks in order to develop hunting desire. During this time I put an e-collar on the dog just to get the dog used to wearing it. Also during this time I introduce live birds, including fliers, and give a positive introduction to the gun. Once the dog has shown a desire to hunt, likes birds and is not afraid of the gun, the decision is made to start yard work (basic obedience).
The first command we will teach your dog is to “heel”. For this command you will need a short lead and a choke chain type collar, and have your
electronic trainer activated and on the dog according to your particular collar’s instructions. The level of stimulation will vary between dogs but I always start at the low end and gradually work up to a level that shows results but does not overwhelm the dog. The collar that I use has six stimulation levels, one being low and six being high. I generally use a level two.
Here is a helpful tip that will keep your dog’s attitude up and keep him eager to train. Before every training session take a training dummy and throw your dog three or four happy retrieves. This will help get your dog’s enthusiasm up, which will carry over into your training session. By doing this after each training session your dog will end each session with a positive attitude, thus making him eager to train the next time out. You can also do this in the middle of a training session if your dog’s attitude is down and things are not going well. You will be surprised at how this little tip will keep your training sessions fun and easy.
Teaching your dog to heel is a pretty easy task but an important part of conditioning your dog to the collar. So let’s go through this first step.
 | | Ten years ago, if someone had told me that the only way to train a gundog was with the aid of an electronic training device, I would have laughed and bet the farm against it.
Photo by: Dana M. English |
Start by having your dog standing or sitting beside you. Now give the command to heel and pull on the lead and start walking. You noticed that nothing was said about the collar. The reason is the first couple of times you want the dog to be familiar with his command. So do this a couple of times, “heel, pull, and walk”. Once you have done this you can introduce stimulation to this command. To do this, give the command heel, pull on the lead and stimulate using continuous stimulation. You will want to pull on the lead and stimulate at the same time. As soon as the dog moves forward, immediately stop stimulation. The timing is very important. You want the choke chain to tighten up and the stimulation to happen at the same time and as soon as the dog obeys your command, you want stimulation to stop. This way the dog will not be alarmed with the stimulation as he is already used to having the choke chain tighten up. The most important part of all this is that as soon as he obeyed the command all discomfort stops; thus, conditioning him to an avoidance type training program. This is a step-by-step program.
Once you can start your dog easily in the manner we just described, you can decrease the amount of pressure you are applying with the lead and just use the electronic trainer. To start decreasing the use of the lead and choke chain, just lighten up on the actual pulling on the lead and use stimulation only. Here is what you want to achieve. Give the heel command, stimulate and start to walk. The dog should be anticipating the stimulation just like he was anticipating the tightening of the choke chain. He should be jumping forward with the command heel. This is why we call this avoidance training. Your dog is learning that if he moves quickly enough he can stop the stimulation. Once your dog learns that he can stop the stimulation, he will start to respond faster.
So far all we have been doing is starting and stopping. Your dog should be associating your command and the stimulation together. If he is making that association, this sets us up for the next step. Start alternating the times you stimulate: meaning give the heel command and walk without giving any stimulation. Your dog should jump forward as if he had stimulation. If he does so, he is conditioned to your command. If he does not, then you need to spend more time on the heel, stimulate, walk exercise.
When you start intermittently stimulating your dog in this exercise you should ease into this by giving the heel command and stimulating two times in a row and then skip stimulating once. Then stimulate again and skip one. Then stimulate and skip stimulation twice. What we would like to achieve is to stimulate the dog on every third or fourth command only. This will get your dog responding to his commands in an eager, confident manner.
Let’s go on to the next part of the heeling exercise. We have taught the dog to start to heel on command. Now let’s teach him to stay at heel. To do this you will have to use your lead and choke chain. Start the dog out by giving the heel command. You can stimulate if you want to; it doesn’t matter at this time. You have started your dog and are walking along. When you have walked twenty feet or so make a right turn. As you do so, give the heel command, pull on the lead and stimulate all in one motion. You want the dog to key off your leg when turning. By turning away form your dog and giving the heel command, your dog will need to be paying attention to you and should not be looking at anything else. Once you have your dog turning to the right, start turning to the left. Do the same as if you were turning to the right. Give the heel command, turn, pull and stimulate. You can start alternating turns. You will want to phase out the lead just as you did with the starting exercise. Once you have done this, leave the lead on the dog but let it drag on the ground. When starting your dog out in this exercise, the procedure should be heel, stimulate, and walk. Always give a verbal command first. Your dog should walk beside you at heel just as if you were holding onto the lead. As you walk, going through your turns, remember to say heel first, than stimulate. Your dog should follow you through all of your turns. You can start to intermittently stimulate your dog through these turning exercises. Your goal here is to get the dog to walk at a heel with you through this whole exercise. One thing that you should have noticed is that nothing was said about taking the lead off your dog yet. You may have to use it to back up and show your dog what you want him to do. Don’t be afraid to do this. It is a lot easier to back up than to dig yourself into a hole. We don’t want to turn this into a big fight. Just back up and show the dog what you want. Remember that once your dog responds to your command stop stimulation immediately.
One thing you’re probably asking yourself is how long should these sessions be? You have to know and be able to read your dog. When I’m collar conditioning a dog I generally spend ten to fifteen minutes with each individual dog. This doesn’t seem to be very long. And sometimes it seems to be too long, however you’re looking at it. My experience is anything shorter will take you longer to condition the dog and anything longer will put too much pressure on the dog, resulting in a sluggish performance.
At this time your dog should be walking at heel and turning with you as you turn with or without a command. If this is so, we will advance to the next step, conditioning your dog to sit.
In the next issue, I will review the techniques on how to condition your dog to sit, how to enforce the sit command, and how to teach the recall or come in command.
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