As I walked out of the arena, I was filled with a blended emotion. It was made of equal parts humiliation and frustration. I had worked so hard on preparing my reining horse to show. At home and in the warm-up pen she performed well, but when we walked into the show pen she felt like a different horse. It was early in my show career, and I had little experience at the time. I had heard people talk about a horse becoming show smart, but until now I had not experienced it. Once I had a chance to calm down, I turned to a couple of my mentors for help. The question I needed answered was, “why does she act differently in the show pen than she does in training?”

Creating Consistency in Your Dog Training

I don’t remember for sure which mentor said it, but the message burned deep into my mind and has served me well throughout my life. “If you want to be successful, you must practice the way you show and show the way you practice.” With a little self-evaluation I realized that my horse probably felt the same way I did. I, too, was different in the show pen than I was outside the show pen.

This principle of consistency has served me well while showing horses, trialing dogs, coaching sports, and hunting. Recently, it came to mind when I yet again saw a post talking about dogs “coming apart” during the hunting season. The individual making the post stated that they had decided to end their season early. Rather than letting things get worse, they were going back to the training field. I do not know what problems they were having; their decision to end their season may have been the right one for their situation. I am not here in judgement of that decision. It did, however, cause me to reflect on what can be done to avoid such a situation.

What it Means to Correct a Dog

There are many methods used to teach our dogs the behaviors that they need to exhibit in order to be good partners in the field. The off-season is the ideal time to do this training. If we get our work done in the off-season, it can prepare us to take full advantage of the hunting season. Proper preparation can prevent any need to cut our season short due to our dogs developing poor behaviors while hunting. I personally think of the hunting season as some of my best training opportunities. The wild birds will self-plant, fly when they are supposed to, and always act wild. Our dogs’ jobs are more challenging in hunting situations than they generally are in training situations. As a result, our dogs will make more mistakes hunting than they do training. In anticipation of these mistakes, it is important that we not only help the dog know its job, but we must also prepare the dog to be corrected when necessary. Preparing to make corrections in the field is the part of training that I see overlooked the most.

When a hunter feels like their dog’s training is falling apart while hunting, or that their dog performs differently while hunting than training, an increased focus on teaching a dog to be corrected is almost always the answer.

The greatest recipe for success is to be sure that we train in a way that can be duplicated in the field. Ideally, the only difference between hunting and training is the type of birds, the location, and the duration of the outing. If we want our dogs to perform the same while hunting as they did in training, we too must handle them the same as we did while training.

Once our dogs know the behavior that we desire, it is imperative that we develop the ability to return them to the correct behavior should they choose not to perform it as taught. This action of returning them to the correct behavior is what I refer to as a “correction.” We have helped the dog to be correct again. This must include a signal to return to the correct behavior, as well as the ability to reinforce this signal.

Correcting a Dog in Action

For example, a flushing dog is expected to work the cover in a manner that keeps them within gun range. Should a dog begin running far ahead and flushing birds beyond gun range, its value as a hunting companion would diminish greatly. This could result in a dog being left at home, or valuable time being spent training instead of hunting. However, if care has been taken in the off-season to teach the dog the patterning that is expected and how to recall and be put back on that pattern, and if the dog has been taught to have this recall reinforced, the hunting trip becomes its own training session. In this way, performances improve as the season goes on. In order for this to work, the handler/hunter must develop the skills necessary to communicate with the animal, and the animal must learn both the behavior that is desired and the method of returning to that behavior.

Another example of teaching a dog to be corrected—returned to the proper behavior—is teaching a dog to stop when it is in full pursuit of a bird in flight. For me, this tool is absolutely necessary. It is a great tool to correct a retriever that broke from the blind early, a flusher that sat on the flush but released itself to retrieve the shot bird, or a pointing dog that broke point to flush and chase the bird. In all three cases, the dog was stationary and then went into motion prematurely. To correct this behavior, you need to return the dog to a stationary state.

This is a behavior in and of itself, separate from the behavior of staying on point—or remain- ing seated. When the behavior of coming to a stop is properly taught, using it to correct a dog is of great value. It allows us to fix problems in real time, as they happen on our hunts, without having to return to the training field.

Thinking of the tools we may need while hunting, to guide a dog back to the correct behavior, and developing these tools/behaviors in the offseason, is what I refer to as “training for the way we hunt.” By training for the way we hunt, we will make it possible to hunt the way we trained. This consistency will allow our hunting excursions to be some of our most effective training sessions.

Now is the Time to Prepare

The off-season is the ideal time to prepare for the hunting season.Teaching our dogs to be corrected during the off-season gives us the chance to help them through any confusion that they may have with the process. As you develop the behaviors and the ability to correct the dog, your ability to act the same way while hunting as you do while training will increase. You will find that your dog will become consistent in his actions both while training and hunting. This allows us and our dogs to approach the hunting season with full confidence, empowering us to handle the different situations that may arise while hunting.