Fritz was
showing all the signs of being ready to start the steadying process. He was
over a year old and had run at a lot of birds. Whenever I took him afield, he
hunted hard to find them. Birds were on his mind, and recently, he had begun
holding point longer. I had introduced the e-collar at five months old, and he
handled well and went with me. Although I’d recently noticed that he was acting
more dominant around the kennel, I hadn’t given it much thought.
The first time I took Fritz to the training field to
work on the steadying process, I was in for a surprise. I put the pinch-collar,
check-cord, and e-collar on him and began walking him around the field. He
surprised me by acting like a total knothead, dragging me everywhere. My
training buddy laughed and said that Fritz had attention deficit disorder, and
he sure acted this way. I had set up a couple of releasers but decided working
him on birds was like pouring gasoline on a fire that was already out of
control. In Fritz’s case, I knew I was wasting my time trying to do anything
with him until he calmed down and started paying attention.
Also, it was dawning on me that he had become
dominant. In my defense, it’s not uncommon for young males to become more
dominant as they mature. Some can get really full of themselves, like teenage
boys. I realized that this coming of age was happening to Fritz, and I’d missed
it. I also realized that I needed to get him calmed down and paying attention
through physical means, in order to earn his respect.
I did not make much progress in the first session, so
in the second session, I placed the pinch-collar above the ID collar. This
placement makes the pinch-collar tug more severe, but Fritz was too excited to
care. To teach him to stop pulling and pay attention, I changed direction,
said, “Here,” and gave a pinch-collar tug that pulled him off balance. A couple
of times when he was in front of me, I stopped and stood still. I put some
slack in the check-cord and gave a good backwards tug, asking him to come to
me. I asked him to come all the way to me and give me eye contact. Eye contact
took some doing, and each time he came in and went past me, I stepped back and
tugged again until he finally looked up at me.
I continued to turn, tug, and ask him to go with me
and come to me in each session. If he pulled too hard, I spun him. It took a
total of four sessions before the light came on. The change was obvious. His
expression said Oh, you’re here too? Now he was calmer, and I had his full
attention. I was ready to teach the stand command.
Teaching the stand command helps you to establish
dominance over a dog; the more dominant the dog, the more important it is to
get this message across early in the steadying process. You have to know what
you’re looking at when training a dominant dog, because he may act in a similar
way as a dog that doesn’t understand what he is being taught.
In Fritz’s case, I put out two releasers just in case
he surprised me by being cooperative. Once we got to the field and he was
working in front of me on the check-cord, I asked him to stop and stand still.
He stopped but didn’t want to stand still. I knew I had to be demanding and
teach him to keep all four feet planted on the ground, in order to earn his
respect. He put up a good fight to stay in control, and challenged me by taking
steps or moving whenever I took a step behind or in front of him. We never
worked on releasers, and I went three more sessions before he’d made enough
progress for me to show him a bird.
Fritz is an extreme example, but dominant dogs like
him are good reminders of how important it is to get dogs calm and paying
attention before advancing in the steadying process. Once I’d earned Fritz’s
respect, training went much more smoothly. Dominant dogs like Fritz may take
more time in the beginning and require a heavier hand, but by going slowly and
foregoing bird work, I was making an investment that would pay dividends in the
future. Instead of training a dog that was a knothead, I was training a dog
that wanted to learn.
