In my last post I talked about teaching line. Homer and I struggled with this part of his hunting dog training for quite some time. Hind sight is always 20/20 and looking back I think most of the problems Homer had were “Trainer” problems. I’ve learned in dog training, many things that seem like dog problems are in fact “bad training”. I expected too much distance at first. By not progressing slowly with distance I created bad habits in Homer. The worst problem was the “ Banana” line. Homer would start out going straight for about 50ft and then hook right or left. No amount of yelling shocking or cussing seemed to help, he just didn’t seem to get it, BACK means straight ahead.
At this time I should have gone back to shorter distances, it probably would have stopped that problem. What I finally wound up doing because I caused such a bad problem, was setting up a 2 foot wide 50yard long “Run” with metal stakes and string. I placed a pile of dummies at the end of the run and sent Homer out, if he jumped the string he got scolded, and called back. It took about 2 weeks and LOTS of tries but now he goes out straight and holds the line I give him.
One thing both the Water Dog and Gun Dog DVD’s talk about, is proper HEALING and lining the dog up with the target. This was something I was not doing right, I had to go back and watch several times before I got it. Now I pay very close attention to where Homer is pointing and looking BEFORE I send him. The videos have several hunting dog training drills to help teach line that I skipped and it defiantly caused problems. I highly recommend following the DVD’s as close as possible to avoid getting ahead of yourself. This will help you and the dog.
Joe Dynarski