This has nothing to do with the smallish man in the black three piece suit, as I remember him, introduced to me as Uncle Albert, who my uncle used to pick up at the airport and take to the Crumlin Road Jail when he came to do some “work” in Belfast. This is about how to get a dog to stop in its own body length, belly and chin on the ground, from a gallop, and remain so until released. Why belly and chin on the ground? Because a dog can’t see much from this position and what it can’t see can’t tempt it to move. The belly down position is also another step further away from running than the sit position and as such gives you a greater chance of reinforcing the drop before a dog can move.
Historically Pointers haven’t been used for retrieving in the British Isles and currently aren’t required to retrieve game in field trials organised by either The Kennel Club (K.C.) or the Irish Kennel Club (I.K.C.). I owned a setter , Danny, who would retrieve after a fashion and currently I have a dog that has got a “Best” award at a retrieving trial on the continent but other than that I don’t ask my dogs to retrieve a) because I don’t want to run the risk of inducing unsteadiness and b) because I am old school when shooting over my pointers and prefer to use a spaniel or other such for the retrieving. The net result is that as I don’t need a dog to sit to present game to me I don’t teach the “Sit”,………………… EXCEPT,………….. for the purposes of teaching the drop.
At this juncture a few guidelines. Don’t give a command you don’t intend to enforce or can’t enforce. This is a general guideline but is particularly important when working with pups and saplings. If you aren’t prepared to stand up and go after the pup to make it comply with a command , don’t give the command. If, say you are working in the garden and the pup gets to the other side of a flowerbed you aren’t prepared to step on to be able to get to the dog to enforce the command, don’t give a command. Equally as important if not more so, don’t give a command that you don’t really expect to be obeyed. Eventually you will reach a stage where you will not only expect but insist that all commands are obeyed. However, in the early stages if you were trying to teach something like the drop and the pup was distracted by a butterfly there would be little point in expecting it to obey while distracted. Better by far to wait until there are no distractions and the pup is concentrating on you. Please remember that if you give a command that isn’t obeyed, and you don’t enforce it, you are effectively teaching the dog that non compliance is an option. It isn’t!
This isn’t a guideline, it is a cardinal rule. Never, not even on February 29th, are you to chastise a dog that has come to you of its own accord. If you run after a dog and catch it you can chastise it. You can bawl and roar at a dog that is disobeying you but if it comes to you, willingly or otherwise, you MUST, welcome it.
This whole procedure starts with getting the pup to a stage where it is happy in your company. You can hardly expect a pup to sit or lie quietly beside you if it is scared of you so it must be content to be handled by you. I spend a lot of time with my pups. I talk to them and play with them, and it is rough play at that. I pull them about, lift them by the scruff, throw them into each other, mock attack them both physically and verbally and they absolutely love it. I am their bestest friend in the whole world. I hand feed them tripe and take them for walks. When I kneel on the grass to start the sit lesson I don’t have to call them to me, they are all over me like a rash.
The next step is keeping still. Most pups don’t do still, and will resist any attempt to be kept so. You will however find that if you gently restrain the pup and say “Good dog” in a happy voice that they will freeze for an instant. Eventually delay the “Good dog” for a second or two after grabbing them and they will quite readily stay still. It is very difficult to say how many times you need to do this, or any other step before you can think you have successfully taught it. I usually use twenty repetitions as a rule of thumb. That means the dog has done what I wanted twenty times in a row. If the dogs fails on the nineteenth attempt we start the count from the start again. In other words once the pup has stayed still for me for twenty repetitions I can move to the next step.
Next we introduce a bit of form to the drill. Call the dog in, sort of pull its front end up, gently, by the scruff and push its bum to the floor. If you prefer you can put your hand under the pup’s chin and lift its head and push down on the hips. Which ever works best for you. Say the word “Sit”. This is best done standing tall over the dog so that it has to look up for your voice. When the pup relaxes for an instant you say “Good dog” and release. No pressure, just yet. From now on this is more about you than the pup. You consistently call the pup in and gently force it to assume the position required. The more you do it, remembering “Good dog”, the more the pup will relax and the amount of gentle force you are required to use will reduce. When it has relaxed twenty times, more or less in the desired position you extend the hold to maybe five seconds. Once it will relax for five seconds you change the drill slightly. You place the pup in the sit position and remove your hands saying ” Good dog” but after five seconds. When you have the desired repetitions you have a dog that will readily sit on command, at least beside you. I don’t want you to get too hung up on the number of repetitions. Some dogs may respond relatively quickly and after only twenty or thirty goes the dog will be sitting. Others might take a hundred attempts to get twenty right in a row. There is no doubt however that a consistent approach over a number of days will achieve the desired result, a dog that sits on command.
Simply because I have yet to meet a pup that doesn’t like having its ears tickled the next bit is relatively easy. To get the dog into the desired belly and chin on the ground position proceed thus. In this example I will be kneeling beside the dog at ninety degrees to the animal which will be sitting in front of me looking from right to left. I place my left hand in the triangle made by the ground, the dog’s front legs and its belly. The right hand will be resting lightly on the dog’s back. Quickly but smoothly I move my left hand away from the dogs’ belly taking the front legs forward and up slightly. In a flowing movement the right hand forces the dog’s head on to its front legs so I now have the dogs head and front legs between my hands and forced together, about nine inches above the ground. In the same flowing movement the head and legs, still together are placed on the ground and gentle pressure exerted to keep them there with the right hand. As the whole lot goes on the floor you give the command “Hup”, and blow whatever whistle you have decided on to use as your drop whistle. As soon as possible the left hand is used to tickle the dog behind the ears, relaxing it as it is retained in this position by gentle yet insistent pressure. Your dog is now in the belly and chin on floor position.
Once more it is a question of consistent repetition to move on from here. You will find it takes less and less force from you get the dog into the position. Eventually it will only take the slightest pressure from your finger tip to keep its head down while you tickle the ears and eventually the tickling will suffice on its own. You will be doing a lot of stroking of the dog, behind it’s ears and along its flanks to keep it in position and you will be giving the “Hup” command and blowing the whistle every time. At this stage you only want the dog to stay in the down position for say ten seconds at most and you don’t want to turn these into wrestling sessions but you will find that you will be able to step away from the dog and it will stay down for you.
Like all training you will start to vary what you do. At first you are near the dog’s head but then you step to the rear, still close enough to push the dog gently but firmly back into the down position should it lift its head. This will progress to you being able to walk round the dog giving it the odd tickle and stroke and it will stay down waiting for the release and you making a big fuss with lots of “Well dones” and “Good boys.”
At first the dog will probably close its eyes as you tickle but as this becomes a routine it will look up at you as you step away, hopefully with its chin still on the ground. You now introduce the hand signal of the raised arm with palm towards the dog, the classic policeman’s stop. There is no point doing this if the dog can’t see you so stand in front of the dog. If the dog goes to lift it’s head you can bring the hand down on top of the dog’s head, quite quickly but softly to encourage it to put its head down again.
You are now ready for the big test. Having encouraged the dog to let off steam you call it towards you. As the dog gets near you blow the whistle, give the Hup command and raise your hand and I will be very surprised if as you lower your hand qiuckly in the general direction of the dog’s head it doesn’t drop to the floor with its chin on the ground. A quick tickle , a “Good dog” and it’s done.
You repeat this a good few times and then you start to increase the distance, maybe only five yards at a time, but insisting on compliance every time. If say when you try to increase the distance from twenty yards to twenty five the dog doesn’t respond then you go back to fifteen yards for a time. Slow but steady progress. Up to say fifty yards you want to do this exercise after the dog has had a good blow out and is well loosened up both mentally and physically and isn’t so inclined to rush about. Once fifty yards is in the bag you can try it when the dog is a bit fresher and going a bit quicker. Ideally the dog will be coming towards you and it will be no surprise to find that if the dog doesn’t drop at the first command it will if you close the gap quicly in its direction. Dropping will become the soft option.
You can put a little training into any outing but The Drop is the foundation of my training regime and as such I work at nothing else until it is prefected. I also make a point of dropping each dog a few times every time it is out, putting it on the lead and then releasing it. Some people have created problems by only dropping the dog at the end of the outing and putting it on the lead. A dog with any brains will work this out and may become difficult to pick up, at any time.
