Breaking dog

Ok...I am at the end of my rope with my dog. Two year old black male. FF, obedience is fairly tight (obviously not tight enough.) As soon as ducks are moving towards decoys he starts to whine and when a bird has been downed he barks and yanks on his leash until released and if I go get the bird to not reward the unsteadiness, he just gets louder and more out of control. In the yard I have shot 100's of blanks and thrown bumpers not rewarding flinching and whining but when we get in the field he forgets it all. Does anyone have any suggestions on tightening this up with yard work or any help with getting this under control. He will be relegated to house dog status if I can't get this under control and I think he wants this to happen less than I do. Thanks in advance for any help that can be offered.

Breaking is a tough one. The dog is excited, and he understands the difference between training and the real thing.

Best luck I had with mine was to go hunting and not bring a gun. I'd work with the dog and let buddies shoot. If you're watching birds and swinging the gun, you can't give it the attention it needs.

Good advice, plus he's still young. Also, get an e-collar.

I'm not a retriever guy, but I can compare this to any activity where I want the dog to wait patiently until I say go. First, Gumbeaux gives good advice. Leave your gun in the truck and focus on the dog. Don't plan on shooting a lot of birds - make sure your gunner agrees. Shoot a duck, tell the dog to "mark" and watch the duck fall. He will whine, bark, jerk the check cord, etc. Ignore all that and keep your mouth shut until he quiets down. When he quiets down, immediately send him on the retrieve. He will learn that he gets the duck only when he quiets down. Do this a few times and gradually increase the time he has to wait to be sent. It will take as long as it takes.

You have to decide that this year is about training the dog and not you hunting.

Make sense?

Yeah, I do all that. I use an e-collar, leave the gun in the truck, have buddies willing to shoot one bird at a time. lol, He will NOT stop all the noise until around ten minutes after I have retrieved the bird. He is not rewarded with a retrieve for any and all breaking or whining offenses. I have become the retriever lol. Just don't seem to be making any headway with this.

But, keep the advise coming!!! I need all the information and suggestions I can get. I know that a lot of this is my fault for throwing to many fun bumpers for him when he was younger knowing that he was a very high drive dog. This is mostly my fault for not dialing it back in the past but, I have what I have now. I wanna fix it. Dogs need a job, so I don't want him getting fat and sorry sitting around with nothing to do.

Doubleb20 is the advice I would follow. The dog will learn to control himself if he loves to retrieve as much as it sounds.

The only thing I would add is you don’t have to retrieve the duck your self. If it takes 10 minutes for him to calm down then wait 10 minutes then send him. Next time it might only take 9 minutes.

I would like to add something. While you are doing this training, see if you can video the whole thing. If you can post the video some of these trainers on here might be able to see something you are doing, or not doing. This might help them add to their sugestions on how to fix your issues.

They say there are 2 type dogs, those that break and those that are about to break. My dog is going on 8 years, only time I really need to break out the collar is for breaking. Collar stops the breaking real fast, should only be used on a dogs that are collar conditioned. One correction normally fixes my dog for many hunts normally a season or 2, and then she will slip into bad habits again, and I have to break out the collar on the next hunt to fix.

The whining I would think is a bigger issue; I have no experience here, but many have, so I would take advice from a pro on here, or someone with experience. I would think a “no” with a nik would fix the whining, but that is just a guess..

that's what I do, and I've found what's even more effective is the buzz sound. It freaks her out a little and she focuses more on that sound than the whining.

That being said. This is all good advice, and my dog isn't the most steady dog there is or anything close really. But I'm in the same boat in trying to fix it this year.

Have another dog make the retrieve, see if that's a game changer.

All great advice guys. I really appreciate the help. I am gonna stay after him. Thanks again.

Sometimes the excitement gets ingrained at an early age and like all habits is very hard to get rid of. There are 2 things going on here- 1 the dog is making noise, the other is breaking. Work on one at a time. Set up the senario in training if possible. Work on "Quiet" first, then if you can get that under control fix the breaking.

Robby

Had these same challenges during my dogs first season. Neither are as hard of a fix as you might think. First the whining/barking. Paint a bumper green, stick it in his mouth, reienforce the hold cammand and have him hold it the entire hunt/training session. Make it part of his everyday routine. With a bumper in his mouth he should be unable to make a sound. Simply have him deliver the bumper to hand prior to each retrieve. You will be surprised how quickly he'll figure it out.

Breaking. Find a location/training group where you can simulate an actual hunt by shooting live ducks or pigeons. Cheap? No... Effective? Yes.... A traing group being the preference so that he can also get plenty of practice honoring other dogs further reinforcing his need to only go when sent. It will likely take several sessions but he will eventually become patient. I've also found a healing stick to be much more effective then ecollar corrections in this situation.

Best of luck and keep us posted on his progress.

I have never thought about making him hold a bumper. That seems to make a lot of sense. He is getting better with the breaking. Birds swimming in the decoys before LST puts him over the edge though. Not sure if that is ever going to be fixed or if he will just get the message that if I ain't shootin there ain't a reason to be making a fuss anyway. The post that several gents made about waiting for him to calm down and sit there silent has seemed to really help him. I also extended his check chord a bit so that when it snatches the sh** out of him when he breaks, he has no one to blame but himself. Seems like he breaks the first retrieve pretty bad, then not as much on the second and the longer we go the more calm he seems to get. I guess I just need to stay at it. It is an extremely trying progression though that I am trying to stay patient with him. At the moment I think we are getting somewhere, he does something stupid though and I usually try to just pull him back to something more simple to get a little success and end the session. I will try the bumper this afternoon though and see if I can get anywhere with it. The only problem I see with this is that I don't really have the whining problem in training situations. The whining is in hunting situations. But, I will try to make it a constant in training and transition it into hunting now and see how it helps. Thanks again guys and I will keep you posted.

ok,
The bumper in his mouth worked WONDERS!!!! I don't know what it does but, it made him more steady and got rid of any and all whining. Guess it helps to have something already in his mouth to focus a little better. Thanks guys.

Had a trainer partner with an 8 year old Master level lab that could smack a finished test and was a great hunting dog but started screaming and breaking in the blind and on honor. I don't even want to tell you some of the things he tried. What finally worked was going on multiple trips (duck, dove, pheasant drives) where the dog never retrieved a bird. He sat with the dog and corrected the whining and screaming by saying "quiet!", and turining the dog away from where the birds were falling. Eventually he could sit quietly during an entire hunt. The gentleman that suggested using birds is right on - it takes birds to build a bird dog. Good luck, will look forward to your update.