This book is a supplement to a complete training manual.  It focuses on how to set up effective drills and why you should use them.

Here is the most comprehensive collection of drills ever compiled into book form—techniques that formerly have been spread primarily by word of mouth.  Throughout Spencer keeps in mind the limitations under which most amateurs train. Each drill is diagrammed, with a careful explanation of the purpose, prerequisites, necessary equipment, and pitfalls to avoid.  The exercises herein are limited to field work and oriented to amateurs training their own dogs for hunting or hunt tests. Only you can turn them into drills—by  running your dog through them repetitively!

AUTHOR’S COMMENTS

Retrievers mark falls and retrieve naturally.  But useful as these instinctive behaviors are, they are not sufficient in themselves to produce finished workers. We must condition a dog through various training techniques.

AUTHOR’S BIO

James B. Spencer is a well-known retriever trainer, clinician, hunting test judge, as well as an award winning and engaging writer.

REVIEWS

“…filled with drills that will improve your dog’s performance in the field, if you do your homework”  (Hunting Retriever)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface  

Chapter 1               Why Drill?                           

Chapter 2               Single Mark Concepts and Preliminary Drills

Chapter 3               Drills for Mouth Problems 

Chapter 4               Single Mark Lengthening Drills        

Chapter 5               Single Mark Marking Drills               

Chapter 6               Single Mark Straight Line Drills        

Chapter 7               Double Mark Concepts and Preliminary Drills               

Chapter 8               Double Mark Memory Drills             

Chapter 9               Double Mark Switch-Proofing Drills

Chapter 10             Double Mark Head-Swinging           

Chapter 11             Triple Mark Concepts and Preliminary Drill    

Chapter 12             Triple Mark Memory Drills

Chapter 13             Selection              

Appendix 1             Equipment           

Appendix 2             The Electronic Collar                            

EXCERPT

Chapter 1

Why drill?

I’ve been told that angels have what is called “infused knowledge.” That term presumably means that they received all the knowledge they have—which I’ve been told is considerable, at least when compared to that of human beings—without effort. They didn’t have to memorize definitions and principles. They didn’t have to work a seemingly endless series of problems. In fact, they didn’t have to study in any way. They just know, period.

                I’ve had no personal experience with angels, so I can only repeat here what I’ve heard about them. But I have had extensive experience with dogs over the past 45 years, and I have observed that dogs, too, have “infused knowledge” in a limited way.  We breed them to do certain things naturally or, as we often say, instinctively. Hounds trail and tree fur naturally. Pointing breeds seek and point birds naturally. Spaniels quarter and flush birds naturally. Retrievers mark falls and retrieve naturally. And so on. Dogs do these things—and the above is by no means an exhaustive list of instinctive behaviors we have bred into the various types of dogs—with only the most elementary exposure to suitable opportunities. Given half a chance, nature will out.

                Useful as these instinctive behaviors are to those of us who enjoy hunting with dogs, they are not sufficient in and of themselves to produce finished workers. Far from it. To turn a well-bred dog into the kind of worker we seek, we must complement his instinctive behavior with appropriate elements of “learned behavior,” a.k.a. “training.” How much training a given dog requires depends on what type he is and on how “polished” the boss wants him to be. Hounds require—and will accept—very little. If a hound avoids running trash, loads up on command, and comes in when called (provided he has nothing better to do), he’s “well trained.” Dogs from long-tailed pointing breeds (the Pointer and the three Setter breeds) require more training. They should maintain some sort of contact with their handlers, should be staunch on point (and perhaps steady to wing and shot), should back-point, should stop-to-flush, and should respond to basic obedience commands (Whoa, Come, Heel) under reasonable circumstances. For owners who insist on retrieving, they should also be force-broken. Dogs of the bob-tailed pointing breeds (the German Shorthair, Brittany, Weimaraner, Vizsla, German Wirehair, Wirehaired Pointing Griffon, and so on) require even more training than long-tailed pointing dogs, especially in range control and retrieving (which may or may not be natural to them). Dogs of the flushing spaniel breeds (English Springer, English Cocker, American Cocker, Welsh Springer, Clumber, Sussex, American Water Spaniel, and so on) require substantially more training than bob-tailed pointing breeds. They must quarter within gun range, turn on a whistle command, flush vigorously, and retrieve very well (which most of them do naturally) on land and in water. Ideally a spaniel should be steady, that is, it should Hup (sit) after flushing a bird, and remain in place until sent to retrieve or continue hunting. As you can see, as we move from hounds to pointing breeds to spaniels, the training requirements increase dramatically.

                When we move from spaniels to retrievers, well, as Al Jolson used to say, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” The training requirements for retrievers is at least an order of magnitude (ten times) greater than that of spaniels! A retriever must sit quietly by the blind until all the birds are down. He must ignore decoys. He must do multiple marked retrieves through all manner of natural hazards (wind direction, cover variations, terrain changes, and so forth). And, most importantly, he must do blind retrieves on land and in water. Nothing in the instincts of any dog inclines him to do blind retrieves naturally. Thus, the blind retrieve is totally trained, totally taught, as a complex mixture of three basic elements: lining, stopping, and casting. Although the blind retrieve alone makes retriever training much more “labor intensive” than spaniel training, the rest of retriever field training—namely, marked retrieving—also requires a lot of work, at least as much as it takes to fully train a spaniel. This book covers drills with which you can bring out your retriever’s basic marking instincts and instill adequate control on marked retrieves. (The companion volume, Retriever Training Drills for Blind Retrieves, covers drills for blinds.)

                But before getting into the drills themselves, you should acquaint yourself with the underlying motivation for drilling as such. Only after you understand that can you maximize the benefits of the drills described in this book.

For People: “Repetitio Est Mater Studiorum”

(“Repetition is the Mother of Learning Techniques”)

                This Latin proverb is traditionally mistranslated as “repetition is the mother of learning.” Through dint of—you guessed it—repetition, this mistranslation has become widely accepted in our culture. It even rings with profound wisdom—because it is pithy, because it deals in some abstract way with “learning,” and, of course, because it has been repeated so often.

                Be that as it may, “repetition is the mother of learning” misses the point of this old Roman proverb—by mistranslating “studiorum” as “learning” instead of as some more accurate term, such as “studies,” “efforts,” “approaches,” or (most accurate, in this particular case) “learning techniques.” For the ancient Romans, this proverb proclaimed that, without repetition, no approach to learning could be effective. Although true for both physical and mental skills, it is more obviously so for the former. To acquire any physical skill, one must practice, practice, practice. In any sport, different coaches break their practice sessions down in different ways, but they all insist on seemingly endless repetitions of drills. In the early 1970s (as I recall), psychologists developed a new approach to the acquisition of physical skills, namely, “mental practice.” In this technique, the student closes his eyes and visualizes mentally that he is performing the skill properly, and also visualizes the results. For example, a golfer pictures himself swinging a 5-iron correctly, and then visualizes the ball climbing crisply before falling on the green. Various experiments indicated that this could be 70 to 80 percent as effective as physical practice. Did this new learning technique sidestep, and therefore disprove, “repetitio est mater studiorum”? No way! Essential to the success of “mental practice” is, you guessed it, repetition! The person must repeat this exercise over and over for about 15 minutes each session, for several sessions a day, for several days before showing the promised improvement. (And, of course, he would improve still more if he spent the same amount of time hitting real golf balls.)

                The acquisition of mental skills also requires repetition. Whether in mathematics, a physical science, a social science, a philosophic discipline, or whatever, the general learning process consists of the same two phases: The student learns and memorizes the basic definitions, principles, and methodologies; then he applies these to a series of “problems” (equations, experiments, situations, syllogisms, and so forth). Repetition is essential for both memorization and problem solving.  Educators are forever developing (and abandoning) new approaches, new ways to present the material in this or that discipline. But, to be even minimally successful, each new approach must rely heavily on repetitions by the students. Thus, in human learning, whether physical or mental skills are involved, we can confidently state that, to be effective, every learning technique must be lovingly nursed at the bountiful breasts of “Mother Repetition.”

For Dogs: “Exercitatio Est Mater Studiorum”

 (“Drilling is the Mother of Training Techniques”)

                If repetition is essential for human learning, how could it be less than essential for dog training? Dogs, after all, lack human intelligence. (If you doubt that, try teaching a dog to read and write!) Contrary to today’s trendy canine psycho-babble, we train dogs—we always have and always will—through a process which Pavlov long ago named “conditioning.” We teach a dog to respond in a certain way to a certain stimulus—for example, to sit on a single whistle blast—by making sitting the dog’s “conditioned response” to the whistle blast stimulus. We can condition a dog thusly through various training techniques, some positive, some negative, some more, and some less effective. But, essential to the success of whatever techniques we use is—again you guessed it—repetition, and lots of it!

                In common dog-training parlance, frequent repetition of specific training techniques is called “drilling.” Thus, we train dogs through drilling. We drill them to bring out their natural instincts, and we drill them to teach them to perform tasks beyond their natural instincts. Over the years, dog trainers have developed better and better techniques, frequently as a result of improvements in equipment. However, the one constant through the entire history of dog training is, and always will be, drilling.

Trial-and-Success—Trial-and-Error

                In general, you use a two-phased approach to training your dog in any skill. In the first phase, which I have long called “trial-and-success,” you lead your dog through the stimulus/response sequence under circumstances in which he has almost no chance to make a mistake. Let’s take sitting on the whistle as an example. With your puppy on lead, you toot the whistle as you push his rump to the ground with your left hand and hold his head up with the lead. As soon as he is sitting, you praise him (very important). You do this repeatedly until he begins to sit before you can push his rump down. In this phase, you have led him through the proper response and you have rewarded him (with praise—or even food treats, if you like). He now knows how he should respond to the Sit-whistle, but he doesn’t yet understand that he must do it every time.

                To teach him the necessity of sitting on command, you move into phase two, which I have long called “trial-and-error,” in which you allow him to make mistakes and correct him each time he does. With the puppy still on lead, so you can control him, you toot the whistle when he is a little distracted. If he sits, you praise him. If he ignores the whistle, you tap him crisply on the rump, either with your hand or a “sit-stick.” Although this should not be a heavy blow, he should feel it and find it unpleasant enough to be avoided in the future. This tap on the rump puts him in a sitting position—so you praise him (even more important after a correction). You repeat this with various distractions to tempt him to ignore the whistle. Gradually, he learns that not sitting on the whistle brings unpleasant consequences—just as sitting on the whistle brings pleasant consequences. Eventually, after you have given him enough of this trial-and-error work, he will sit automatically when you toot the whistle, no matter what.

                To put it another way: In the trial-and-success phase, you teach your dog to “do good,” in the trial-and-error phase, you teach him to “avoid evil.” To be fully conditioned, he needs both. Trial-and-success, because of its rewards, gives your dog a positive attitude toward whatever command you are teaching him. Trial-and-error, because of its punishments, teaches him that he must obey, whether he feels like it or not. Both phases are necessary to completely condition your dog.

                In recent years, a lot of ink has been splashed about advocating “totally positive reinforcement.” Loosely translated, this means use only phase-one techniques, with their rewards, but never use phase-two techniques, with their punishments. This is pure psycho-babble. When your retriever is high-balling after a jack rabbit instead of carrying your line to a blind retrieve—and especially if the rabbit is heading toward a four-lane divided—you’ll be glad you reinforced the Sit-whistle with the “not totally positive reinforcements” of the trial-and-error phase. Had you used only the “totally positive reinforcement” of the trial-and-success phase, he would almost certainly decide to forego whatever delights you might have in store for him this time. He would rather catch the rabbit.

                When your retriever is properly conditioned—to stop on the whistle, or obey any other command—he will obey happily, because of phase-one drilling, but he will also have some fear of disobeying, because of phase-two drilling. To be reliable, he needs both. As the ancient Romans said: “Verba sapientibus” (words for the wise).