TRAINING YOUR SPRINGER
Puppy School - what to expect from an accredited puppy school
Get Started with Gundog training
Spring Thing Gundog Training Day Pictures
Page 2 of the Gundog Training day with Edward Martin
Lazy owners train their dogs - rescue springer Dicker helps around the house
BASIC OBEDIENCE
It is vital that you start basic training with your Springer as soon as you get it, there is nothing worse than a stroppy teenage Springer with no training what so ever. You will simply spend many hours in the park waiting for your dog to exhaust itself and finally come back. Springer’s are very intelligent and thoroughly enjoy the challenge of training so if you enjoy yourself so will your dog.
Recall
This probably the most important thing you will teach your Springer so it is vital to get this one right. Most Springer’s are quite greedy and therefore food can be a great reward, if you don’t want to use food then a toy or a game and praise can be just as effective. To start with use just your voice and call your puppy whenever you have anything interesting at all, dinner, a toy, a treat, affection, anything positive. It is vital at this early stage that you don’t call your dog to you when you are going to chastise it, never make recall a negative, no matter how cross or frustrated you are if you call your dog then you must praise it for coming. How many people have you seen calling their dog that has been off chasing bunnies and then chastising it when it returns because it didn’t come back when called, however dogs don’t see it like that, they think they are being punished for coming back. Start to make your recalls more fun, hide in the house with a treat and call your dog, make your recall training a game at this early stage. Soon your puppy will come running whenever it hears its name.
Many Springer owners like to use a whistle to recall their dogs, I use one so that I am not shouting at the top of my voice to get my dogs attention. A simple training whistle available from pet shops, or a high pitched gundog whistle, whatever you prefer. Whistle training is the same as the name training, hang the whistle around your neck and give 3 pips whenever you have something fun for our puppy, start where the puppy can see you, once they associate the 3 pips with a reward you can start to hide around the house and blow your whistle, and then surprise your puppy with a toy or treat for finding you. At this early stage do not be tempted to let your puppy run free in the park, it is a great reward for your Springer to be off lead playing and it can therefore be difficult to get your puppies attention, and this can ruin your previous training as you can stand and call until you are blue in the face but your puppy has spotted somebody to play with.
Once your puppy has a 100% recall in the house, move out to the garden, and only once they are doing 100% of recalls in the gardens do you train in the park, first on a long lead, or extending lead, and again once you can get 100% of your recalls on the long lead, no matter what the distraction, then you can try your puppy off lead. If your puppy has no recall off lead then you have gone too fast, back track a few stages and work with distractions on the lead until you can be totally confident your puppy will come back - and remember great rewards achieve better results. The sooner you have a good recall the sooner your Springer puppy can exercise off lead and have some fun, this early off lead time is great to instil confidence, your puppy will be more likely to stay close and watch you, this will become more useful as your Springer develops and doesn’t stray too far. A lot of problems are caused by the dog always being on the lead, and when they are let off they are so excited they pay no attention to their owner, where they are going or what they are saying.
Be prepared for some moments when your puppy goes running off to play with another dog, and doesn’t hear your first time, just remember to stay positive, happy voice, and maybe try going in the opposite direction, calling the puppy, once they realise you are moving they are more likely to respond than if you try and catch them. If the puppy turns and runs back then praise them for coming back, don’t get cross for going off in the first place or you will undo all your precious training.
Some useful tips include hiding behind the nearest tree, causing your puppy to hunt for you, running in the opposite direction calling as you go, and carrying a high reward titbit for really good recalls, for example stopping during a chase and returning, make sure you make them know they did well.
If using a whistle don’t recall all the time for the sake of it because by the time it comes to an important recall from a distraction the dog will be fed up. Use a catch up call, come along, or something mine respond to is hey hey hey, gets them look see where you are but they don’t need to come right back, just catch up. If you always ask for a perfect recall your puppy will get easily bored, keep it interesting and varied but make sure your recall is spot on each time.
The rescue dog is much harder because quite often they will have little or no recall. Start as you would with a puppy, lots of rewards in the house, then into the garden, and only once you can do 100% long lead recalls in the park should you let your dog off lead.
Most importantly - do not chase your dog, they will only make a game of it, and do not correct your dog for coming back or they won’t bother next time.
"Here I come Dad" , Alfie showing off his recall.
SIT
Firstly remember that forcing your puppy to sit will not teach him to action of sit, so try and think like your puppy before you do anything, what will make you figure it out best, doing it for yourself or being forced to move.
The easiest way to start a sit is to get a biscuit. Let your puppy see the biscuit and slowly move the biscuit over the puppies eyes and slightly over the head, the puppy’s eyes will follow the biscuit and gravity will do the rest, the head will come up and the bottom will go down. Once you have the action then introduce the cue, say “sit” as you move your hand, once the puppy is confident stand straight and try again, but don’t make the movement so exaggerated, lift the hand up and slightly over the hand and see what the puppy does, if it sits lots of praise and reward, if not you have moved too fast so go back to being down low and lifting the titbit over the head, don’t be tempted to press your puppy’s bottom down. Once your puppy has mastered the sit try and use it whenever you have a reward to offer, giving your puppy its dinner, a toy or a treat.
Again the method is the same for an older rescue dog with no training, lots of positive encouragement, most dogs will master the sit very quickly using this method no matter what age they are, but remember that a rescue dog may have had some negative training experiences in the past so take you time and don’t be tempted to push your dog about, past history may include some aggressive handling and you will lose the trust if you are too pushy, work slowly for short periods of time and keep it fun. Just the same with the puppy, try to ask for a sit when you have something good on offer, get your dog into the habit if thinking that they get nothing unless they are sitting, this can also help with jumping up for titbits which is not to be encouraged.
For either the puppy or the rescue dog you should never need to force the sit if you are using positive reinforcement, the consequences of not sitting is the reward being removed. First ask your dog to sit, give them the chance to show off a bit, secondly if they don’t respond tell them to sit, dogs name and sit, if they do not respond then remove the reward and walk away, try again in a few minutes. This may sound laborious but it will produce a much quicker and more enthusiastic sit, as compared to the method of telling your dog and if it doesn’t respond, make it sit by force, and remember the reward may simply be your voice, I am not saying the dog needs a biscuit for every sit, your praise and a rub is more than enough for a young dog to realise it did well, if the dog fails the sit then say nothing, that is a greater punishment for your dog than any form of chastisement.
"Got this sit sussed mum" says Ozzy
DOWN
To train the down we must ensure that the puppy will sit happily and maintain a sit. Once they can hold a sit then its time for the down. Start of simple simply put the puppy in the sit and then bring a titbit down to the dogs front paws and move it slowly away from the dog, most Springer’s will follow with their noses and gravity will do the rest, at the same time you move the titbit say Down. Nice and simple but it doesn’t always work like that. Plenty of dogs will follow the titbit with their nose but their bottom will come up at the same time, here are 2 ways to help with that
1. Sit on the floor with one leg out in front of you, make an ark with your leg which the dog could fit under lying down. Sit the dog on one side of you leg and pass the titbit under the ark saying down at the same time, hopefully the puppy will follow the titbit under the ark and lie down, reward as soon as they lie down, practice by getting your leg higher and higher until the dog is responding to the word down by actually lying down .
2. Clicker training, First read how to introduce your dog to clicker training
Then once your dog is reacting to the clicker you can use it to teach something like the down. Now you can do this without titbits in the classic clicker way but I find this method just as effective and easy for puppies.
Put your puppy in the sit, drop your hand in front of the nose and click for the head going down, once the puppy is following your hand, only click for a head down and forward lean, so as you move the titbit down you can pull it slightly away from the puppy If the puppy’s bottom comes up, just use a non- reward tone like “oops” and remove the titbit. Basically you are building up a series of slight movements until the dog actually lowers itself to the down, don’t use the word down until the puppy is lying down to follow the titbit or it will think down means lower the head, then down might mean lower head and lean forward etc, wait until the puppy can do a down before you introduce the word, this takes time and patience but is fun for both you and the puppy so why not give it a go.
As you can see we I am trying to encourage positive dog training which is great for a rescue Springer, it can really build up their confidence, like the sit, you never know what they have encountered before so positive training will be fun for the dog and it will be more willing to want to relearn things it was taught in the past that it didn’t enjoy learning.
"Right puppies, down
is easy", says Holly
STAY
The stay should be built up gradually just as you would teach a child maths, there is no point asking a child what 7 + 13 is, if they don’t even know what 1 + 1 is.
Starting at the basics, get your Springer used to sitting still, ask for the sit, then say stay, stand straight and count to 5, if your Springer is still watching you after 5 seconds, reward and break off the exercise. If your dog does not sit still for 5 seconds then you will have to start with 2 seconds and build up. Once your dog can sit still for 20 seconds or more, then start taking short steps away, keep it short 5- 10 seconds and return and praise, don’t go too far at this stage. If your dog gets up and comes over don’t get cross, it was your fault, you either went too far or you were away too long.
By building your stay exercise up in stages you are making the dog concentrate and allowing it to realise the process involved in a stay.
"Is this a stay mum?", says Willow