Puppy training

[Fullcryutah]

I have a 2 yr old grade dog great blood on both sides he has started super strong but lately he will start to Trail and he will go about 300 yards and if he does not jump game he quits and comes back when the other dogs jump the game he runs straight to them and tree super hard has anyone had an experience like this and how did they break them of that.

[david]

With puppies (juveniles) getting started, I catch them up and put them in the box and they stay there the rest of the day. They have to stay in there and listen to all the action they are missing out on. I have always found with young dogs “reverse psychology” has worked well. What I want them to do is hunt hard and not come back. What I force them to do is not hunt and not do anything fun if they show up while other dogs are obviously working.

Hounds that are FULL HOUND blood have responded well to this and it intensifies their desire to hunt and they avoid behaviors that would land them in jail for the rest of the day.

However, I have experimented with dogs that are not full hound, (and not even cur), and what you describe is the reason I no longer have them. At times I could work them out of it, but it was way too much work, and if laid up for a time they might easily slip back into this behavior.

At two years old, I would be a bit worried, and each infraction would be placed on the evaluation balance. There is only so much of it I will take.

But also, some dogs just really need to be laid up for awhile, and/or left in the box and not allowed to hunt.

There has been more than once that I was frustrated to the point of culling from the pack. But instead, I laid the dog up for awhile until I forgot what I was so frustrated about. Two dogs who are still at the top of my list for all time favorites went through this process. They seemed to be going backwards but instead of pulling the plug on them, I kept them and laid them up.

If you have a Garmin, another option is to give stimulation when you see the dog falling out. This has worked for me in getting a dog not to get hung up at a location of heavy scent. I had to teach him a vocal command that meant “press on!” This took staying with him as best I could and giving the command while forcing him on in the direction I felt the game went. It took very little work and he quickly understood with the help of the Garmin.

If your dog is coming out on the backtrack, and you are coming in on the track, with the help of the Garmin it would be nothing to scold him (depending on his temperament and personality); turn him around and send him back down the track with encouragement. A few times of this, and tone/electricity would be appropriate, because he will understand what you mean by it. Without that training, many dogs will interpret the tone as “quit hunting and get to the truck”. But the tone or vocalization can easily become an encouragement to hunt harder and faster. I have seen this with my own eyes; first by watching Finney Clay, and then by using it with my own dogs.

Bird dog trainers have long used mild electrical stimulation to produce a more enthusiastic positive behavior. Think about it. The tone most certainly produces a shot of Adrenalin. With a little training and positive association, this adrenalin can be used toward a more enthusiastic desired behavior (eg. hunting harder).

But if it was me, I would begin by catching him up and putting him in jail every time he shows up at the truck while others are working. He definately would not be allowed to join them on the jump or at the tree!! This would be rewarding/reinforcing his lazy behavior.
Think about it; wouldn’t you also rather let others do all the work and you just show up on pay day and collect the same pay check as they are getting?

If you could get away with that, how many times would it take before it became a habit for you?

[DeerRunnerWolfSlayer]

The dog sounds like it just doesn't have the drive to continue on a cold track. This happens when the dog grows up running hot tracks, it never gets used to cold trailing.

[ALEX]

If your dog is coming out on the backtrack, and you are coming in on the track, with the help of the Garmin it would be nothing to scold him (depending on his temperament and personality); turn him around and send him back down the track with encouragement. A few times of this, and tone/electricity would be appropriate, because he will understand what you mean by it. Without that training, many dogs will interpret the tone as “quit hunting and get to the truck”. But the tone or vocalization can easily become an encouragement to hunt harder and faster. I have seen this with my own eyes; first by watching Finney Clay, and then by using it with my own dogs.

-David, building on this suggestion, what would you recommend if someone tried this on a dog, and it could not be encouraged to go back and work on that track again?

[ALEX]

But if it was me, I would begin by catching him up and putting him in jail every time he shows up at the truck while others are working. He definately would not be allowed to join them on the jump or at the tree!! This would be rewarding/reinforcing his lazy behavior.
Think about it; wouldn’t you also rather let others do all the work and you just show up on pay day and collect the same pay check as they are getting?

-I could imagine a lot of dogs would come back if they're not interested,tired,bored, etc...Putting them in the truck right then and there seems like a good way to use that reverse psychology if they feel like they're being left out later in the hunt if they hear other dogs or know they're getting left in the box when you take off to hike in to the dogs. How would you handle a situation where a hound keeps coming back and despite trying to kennel them each time, it still doesn't make much difference in their staying power while hunting even having gotten left out of the action many a time? I could see a tired dog actually being happy to load in the box and take a nap (getting to snooze while the other dogs carry the weight and not really feeling like it missed anything desirable especially if the other dogs are out of hearing and you can't drive closer to get them in hearing of the kenneled dog)

[david]

If your dog is coming out on the backtrack, and you are coming in on the track, with the help of the Garmin it would be nothing to scold him (depending on his temperament and personality); turn him around and send him back down the track with encouragement. A few times of this, and tone/electricity would be appropriate, because he will understand what you mean by it. Without that training, many dogs will interpret the tone as “quit hunting and get to the truck”. But the tone or vocalization can easily become an encouragement to hunt harder and faster. I have seen this with my own eyes; first by watching Finney Clay, and then by using it with my own dogs.

-David, building on this suggestion, what would you recommend if someone tried this on a dog, and it could not be encouraged to go back and work on that track again?

Great question. But now you are getting into nuances of a particular dog. It is so hard for me to judge a situation without knowing the dog personally.

There are a lot of really successful Houndsmen who can only use one personality type of dog. To them, any thing else is a cull. And if it wasn’t a cull when they started with it, it is by the time they try to cram it into the mold of the one type of dog that works for their personality and their hunting style.

There really is nothing wrong with this and they are successful hunters who catch lots of game. But they learned on a certain type of dog, they know that type, and they quickly eliminate any other type of dog. It is a waste of time, money and energy for them to keep trying to work with a dog that does not fit their formula.

You might have a dog that is not going to fit your formula for success. And if that is true, you must start thinking about removing him from your hunting system. He will waste you time and money and cost you frustration. Hunting is supposed to be enjoyable. So we try to eliminate the parts of it that are not enjoyable when we can.

For me, game does not hold my attention like dogs do. I find dogs fascinating: all working dogs or dogs that have a job of some kind. So to an extent, I enjoy a wide range of personality types in dogs.

One of the first things I learned from Bill Dwyer back in the early eighties is: “all dogs are good at something”. It might not be what you need them to be good at. But ever since then, I have tried to identify a dogs giftedness. And what has always driven me is when I identify a powerful gift, I want so badly to discover the outer limits of that dogs gift. That means constantly putting him in situations where he can learn and refine his gift.

Bill also told me about “the big D”: Desire.
He said you can take it out of them, but you cannot put it in them.

If your dog does not have the desire to hunt, you won’t be able to put it in him.

But my point was that some dogs just need to grow and develop and mature. If your dog is not showing enough desire, but there are other redeeming qualities about him, I would highly recommend you just forget about taking him hunting for awhile.

Try him again in about six weeks, or even wait a couple months and try him. Keep him up to a year if you have that much dog food and patience and you really love the dog.

Sometimes these things will switch on like a light switch when something happens in the dogs brain as he matures.

It would help if I knew how your dog is bred. Because certain types of breeding practices commonly produce dogs that come on very late, but when they do they are very good.

But in my experience, trying to force a dog to want to hunt just doesn’t work very often.

When I have trained a single pup to hunt cats, I will leash them and walk them on the track in the snow. I need snow for this since I don’t know where the track is otherwise. But if another dog has put a line down on your Garmin for you, you can leash your dog and walk him in the track (although he may be trailing your dog and not the cat; but still would notice the game scent eventually). Then when my pup was pulling hard on the leash, I would let him go. I would do my best to stay on the track and keep progressing. The dog would loose the track and come back to me so I would leash him and continue on until he was pulling hard again. Then I would just keep repeating this until the jump, and even after the jump if he lost the track again.

Some dogs respond to this kind of training in a very powerful way. And I think for some it is partly because they enjoy the connection to their master. They want to please him and now they understand exactly what he wants. It just happens to be what they want also; and they absolutely love feeling like a team with you. (Plenty of good dogs don’t care about what their master is doing, as long as he gives them a ride to the woods. But as people breed for higher intelligence there might be a greater need for connection also)

Again it would help to know how the dog is bred, because there are dogs that are quitting and coming back because they are feeling to far away from their master. If this is the case, the dog is wanting you to be more involved in the hunt. To him you are showing that you don’t care about the hunt because you are sitting in your truck or standing on the road. Or they might feel insecure or left out when they hear you moving the truck.

I don’t know how your dog might respond to you being more involved in the hunt, but it might be worth a try.

We wish you the best. I wish I could watch him so I would know what to tell you. His postures, positions, attitudes and movements are all giving you information about what is going on in his head and in his body.

[ALEX]

David,

Very appreciative of the in depth, detailed response touching on some things that aren't the most intuitive to consider. Those questions were hypotheticals more or less, because I've dealt with those scenarios in the past, like I'm sure many have. Your input touched on the deeper level of relations we can have with our hounds if we pay attention to it. Very insightful information.

[Fullcryutah]

Thanks for all your insight! If there is one thing I have learned I'm never too proud to ask questions or take recommendations year after year I seem to always find a new situation to deal with. different dogs respond better to different methods learned by all of you thanks for everyone's help

[pegleg]

Also trailing. Whether you call it ability or desire or both. If that dog doesnt believe its catchable is a possibility. So he naturally comes to you. If a hound is really excited about a track but comes back time and again. That falls into three classes for me. A honest loss. A dog breed one way or another to stay close to the handler. Or a pup with out the confidence/desire. If its very young it might grow out of it.
But at 2 if its been hunted/handled enough. The dog is either at fault or its training.
Hunting on foot or horseback can encourage a hound to hunt close. But if it has drive nothing should keep it close once it hits a track.
Its different but i once had a hound about a year old that was high drive but at a half mile or so would hang up. Until you could be seen or heard.
I dont like coupling hounds the drawbacks are numerous. But sometimes it seems to be the solution. Everyday i coupled that dog to another for a few weeks. Kenneled them at night. When i next took it hunting it stayed with the mate the whole time.
Maybe it worked or maybe it not hunting for a while like david said.
However for me if a dog doesnt have the desire to pound a track to death trying to line it out everytime even if its beyond its ability they dont stay long. But to be clear i dont own any hounds that dont hunt within a few hundred yards until a track is struck either.
All these things might have some small chance. But a hound that starts a track and quits while other dogs are continueing to move it. Has either been trained to by some experience handler/other dog etc. Or lacks drive..