Pass Along PDJ
October 2008

Using the Right Stimulation
by Rick Smith and Sharon Potter

Finally, after a long summer of training and practicing, it's here at last: hunting season! It's the real deal, not just drills and yard work and conditioning and training. This is where it all comes together. Whether your dog's an older, seasoned campaigner, a young dog looking forward to its first season, or anything in between, it's time to put it all together and use the training your dog has. When you do that, don't forget one important fact: You're still the boss, and the dog still needs to be in control and pay attention to your direction.

Along those lines, it's just as important during the season to have your hunting routine mirror your training routine as much as possible. Sticking to a similar routine keeps your dog's attention and focus and keeps you in control, meaning you'll be more likely to have a dog that is working for and going with you.

Let's face it: The real thing is a lot more exciting than everyday training, for both ourselves and our dogs. That's a good thing, because it makes all the time spent practicing worth it -- but there's a potential downside to all that fun and excitement. While we all know that in the heat of the moment our dogs can get overexcited and make mistakes, we tend to forget that we can also get overexcited and make mistakes, too. And the worst part of our making mistakes is that it's often the dog that has to pay for them, especially if we happen to make those mistakes with an e-collar transmitter in our hand.

Most dogs tend to come a little unglued as hunting season progresses. This happens for a couple of reasons. First of all, real hunting is not a controlled environment like training is. We don't know where the birds are or what's around the next corner like we do when we're training. And second, we've always got a shotgun in our hand rather than a transmitter, and there's a lot more shooting (and hopefully birds falling) during hunting as opposed to training. Our dogs, being the smart, bird-motivated critters they are, figure out the difference in short order. Because of the wild birds and the unpredictability involved, real hunting excites our dogs, sometimes to the level of non-compliance. The longer we let that go on without making a correction, the more we reinforce the dog's bad manners, and the whole thing snowballs. Now we've got a choice: Do we continue on as we were, or do we plan to make a correction the next time the dog makes the mistake? If they got away with it once, they are pretty likely to try it again, and that's how the snowball starts rolling...

The full article "Using the Right Stimulation" by Rick Smith and Sharon Potter appears in the upcoming November/December issue of Pointing Dog Journal . If you are a subscriber, stay tuned! That issue will soon mail!

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