From a distance, I saw the covey rise into the air. The low hill between me and the birds prevented me from seeing which dog had caused their flight. It was not long, however, before the culprit came over the rise in hot pursuit. As I expected, it was Joe. Joe was a young setter that had recently come in for some training. His owner had stated that he only ever saw Joe chasing birds in the air. He didn’t ever see him working birds as if he could smell them. He questioned whether Joe had a good enough nose to smell them.
Check-cording a dog into a controlled setup can be a great way to identify training holdups. (Photo courtesy of Tanner Smedley) How Training Mistake Can Disscourage Good Behavior Wild game birds are very exciting and challenging for young dogs. It’s not unusual for a hard running dog to forgo pointing for the love of chasing. I had supposed that this was the case with Joe. As I carefully watched Joe over the course of a handful of outings, I began to see a pattern. When Joe crossed the scent cone of a covey, he would increase his speed and run a loop, bringing him through the covey’s location, running with the wind, flushing and chasing the birds in pure delight. Having a better idea of what Joe was doing, I headed to the training field. My hope was to figure out why Joe was avoiding the scent cone.
With Joe on a check cord, I guided him into a planted pigeon. As he entered the scent cone, Joe stopped and turned to look at me with concern. He was obviously uncomfortable with the situation he was in. Joe clearly did not think of the scent cone as a safe and rewarding place. Next, I free ran him into another planted pigeon. Without the restriction of the check cord, he again ran across the scent cone and made a wide loop around the planted bird, allowing him to flush the bird running with the wind.
Normally, a pointing dog looks for the scent of the bird, and then allows the scent to lead them to the bird. A well-developed dog will then point the bird from a safe distance, avoiding scaring the bird off and allowing the hunter to flush and shoot the bird. The dog is rewarded through the thrill of pointing and the harvest of the bird. This makes the scent cone a desirable place to be. For Joe, the scent cone had become poisoned.
Applying pressure at the wrong times can discourage correct behaviors. (Photo courtesy of Kali Parmley) Inadvertent Dog Training Mistakes All I could do was speculate as to why Joe didn’t like the scent cone. It seemed to be a man-made problem. However, further discussion with the owner did not reveal any pertinent information, which led me to believe that if his owner’s actions had caused Joe’s concern, it had been done inadvertently.
Inadvertent poisoning is something I see a lot of. In fact, it plays a major role in many of the problems that I am asked to help solve. Whenever we set out to make a dog do something, we run a risk of poisoning the action we are making the dog do. If the dog feels forced or is made to do something that it does not understand the value of, it will develop a negative view of that action or experience.
Let’s look at a hypothetical scenario that could leave a dog behaving the way Joe was behaving. The natural progression for a pointing dog is to first learn to find the birds, then try to catch the birds. When it is unable to rush in and catch the birds, the dog will begin to stalk and point. Generally, these early points don’t last long. It can be quite frustrating for a hunter to see his dog breaking point before he gets there. The command “whoa” means stand still. Naturally, a hunter could look at this command as being the answer to his problems. A few crash courses in preparation, an e-collar in hand for reinforcement, and the stage is set for some solid inadvertent poisoning.
Now, let’s switch to the dog’s perspective. The dog had discovered something it greatly enjoyed, finding and attempting to catch game birds. It had discovered that by slowing down and sneaking in it could get much closer. Being that close to the birds was a great thrill! Then, one day, the dog was having the time of its life, frozen like a statue, sucking in the wonderful aroma of game birds. Slowly, the dog took a couple steps trying to get just a little closer. Then, out of nowhere, comes that terrible word “whoa,” followed by that sensation on his neck. In alarm, he spun around to see his owner running and yelling.
Because dogs are masters at identifying what happened right before what happened, happened, it was easy for the dog to recognize that he was pointing and smelling the birds right before the chaos started. It could seem obvious to the dog that it would be better to just skip that part of the game all together. Inadvertently, the handler had poisoned the pointing experience and pushed the dog back to flushing and chasing. Exactly the opposite of what he had intended.
Your training should make it easy and enjoyable for the dog to make the right decisions. (Photo courtesy of Tanner Smedley) Keep the Positive Things Positive A dog is constantly making decisions to gain the things it wants and avoid the things it doesn’t want. It’s vital that we consider how the dog is feeling about what we are doing. In the case of Joe, he felt that birds were great fun, but smelling and pointing birds invited trouble. This is exactly the opposite of what a hunter would desire. It’s likely that Joe's view was created because in a misguided effort to get Joe to point, the act of pointing instead became poisoned.
There is an old saying that we should make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard. In the case of poisoning, undesirable experiences make the right thing unpleasant, essentially reversing the equation. Now the wrong thing is easy, and the right thing is hard. We must take care to ensure that the things we want the dog to consistently do maintain a high value to the dog. Like grandma always said, “Keep the bear scat out of the honey.” (My grandma never said this, but someone’s grandma might have said it.)
