Wutheringhounds

This week in the foundation pet gundog classes we’re working on the autosit to movement/ sit to flush exercise. This is a great and fun exercise to practice with your pet dogs, teaching them to not be so impulsive and think before automatically taking chase. Highly motivated dogs/high drive dogs often have a reduced threshold for various stimuli in the environment. In plain terms this means that they are much more likely to take chase or have a ‘high prey drive’. This can obviously cause problems, as we don’t want our dogs to learn to chase. It’s important with these highly motivated dogs that we teach them alternative behaviours and work with these innate drives through training and games to keep them focussed on you and engaged. I have been practising this with Newt and Badger a fair bit within the hunting sequence recently. It’s something I revisit a lot/ train a lot with my 2 as they have a huge desire to hunt and chase, and left to their own devices could potentially end up in the next county! Here Newt is doing a demo, first one a bit rubbish, second one better! Practice, practice, practice 🐾 #dogtrainer #petgundog #hebdenbridge #springerspaniel #todmorden #calderdale #mytholmroyd #rewardbased #workingspaniel

Newt is 18 months now, I have never reinforced pulling on lead. Sometimes her heel work is great, other times when her arousal is high, she still really struggles. In this video we are walking to the field in the first part, so she is anticipating getting to have a great time off lead, she manages to maintain the position but due to her motivation and anticipation of the field ahead she isn’t as engaged. On the way home, she is much more engaged as you can see. It’s common that people struggle with high arousal, pulling and lunging, and sometimes even noise when their dogs are anticipating getting to go off lead and have a great time. If you have this issue some things that may help are… ✅Being unpredictable with your walking routes. ✅Walking the same route but turning round at different points so your dog isn’t getting to go off lead every time you walk that way. It may be that you do this for a few weeks, and drive them somewhere for off lead time whilst you are training. ✅Practising impulse control exercises in the heel position. Setting up distractions to practice heel work around, or walking towards something they want and rewarding them for maintaining the position by releasing them to access the reward. ✅Using environmental reinforcers, if your dog does some nice heel work, release them to ‘go sniff’. Or build up how many reliable steps they can do in heel in order to access that off lead freedom. #dogtrainer #springerspaniel #workingspaniel #hebdenbridge #todmorden #mytholmroyd #calderdale #westyorkshire #rewardbasedtraining

What does quartering mean in relation to spaniels? ( keep reading to find out why this is relevant to your pet working line spaniel). Spaniels are flushing dogs, their main purpose is to hunt in front of a person with a gun, find and flush the game that then gets shot. Spaniels are required to hunt close ( within gun shot range) and are trained to sit to flush so the person with the gun has a clear shot and doesn’t have to contend with a spaniel hot footing it after a rabbit. These days, spaniels are also often expected to retrieve, and many possess a natural inclination to both hunt and retrieve, though this isn’t true for all. When we refer to quartering, we mean the zigzag pattern the dog does in front of the handler while searching for game. This technique ensures a thorough search of the area. Spaniels utilise the wind during their hunting, often turning into it, and their head carriage tends to be lower than that of some other hunting breeds since they primarily rely on ground scent. However, you’ll often observe a combination of them having their noses close to the ground while occasionally lifting their heads as they hunt. There are various intricate quartering patterns based on the wind direction, generally reserved for advanced handlers. Yet, if you observe your spaniel, you might notice them instinctively quartering with the wind. Most handlers simply want their dogs to search the ground thoroughly and stay close, so it’s beneficial to focus on teaching a basic quartering pattern using a headwind (wind blowing towards you). Now, you have a pet spaniel you have no intentions of working, what has all this got to do with you? By engaging your dog in hunting games, you not only strengthen your bond with them but also enhance their lives by tapping into their innate instincts. Most importantly, you’ll encourage them to stay close to you. The attached video shows Newt hunting into a headwind. Although this field is usually rich in wildlife, sh

Had a 1:1 this afternoon with the very lovely Miss Wren and her owner. Wren has just turned 5 months old and has typically started to take more interest in the environment and is becoming more confident to venture further afield. Hayley wanted help to keep Wren closer and work on getting her recall sharper. What we looked at…. 🐾introduced a marker word to add clarity to training. 🐾Worked on rewarding checkins and teaching her to keep an eye on handler body language by being less predictable. 🐾 Hunting games for fun and to build value in staying close. 🐾Recalling away from things she wants such as food or sniffing. Well done Wren and Hayley, super work! we’ll see you in the foundation pet gundog class soon 🙌😊💪 #springerspaniel #englishspringerspaniel #dogtrainer #hebdenbridge #calderdale #ripponden #puppytraining

Zooming into the weekend! It’s gundog day at Crufts today, and imo the best day at Crufts. Gutted I won’t be there this year, but I always spend a bloody fortune so to save my bank balance and to prevent Matt having a breakdown I’ve decided to stay at home. I’ll be out training my dogs instead. Just for fun tell me what your favourite gundog breed is and why in the comments, bonus points for pictures 📸🐾❤️ #gundog #springerspaniel #workingspaniel #petgundog #dogtrainer #hebdenbridge #westyorkshire

For those that need to hear this…it’s not long now until the trees will be full of leaves, flowers will be in bloom and the light nights grow longer. I’m looking forward to being able to get out and do some training and adventuring with the dogs in the evening and the woods being carpeted with bluebells. What are you most looking forward to? #westyorkshire #calderdale #hebdenbridge #dogtrainer #springiscoming #springerspaniel

Newt is in season, but she got to blow away the cobwebs at Dog Days secure field after class on Tuesday. Here she is being handled onto a short blind retrieve that I tucked away a bit in the shelter. It made it harder for her to wind it, but after stopping her and sending her back she found it 🙌🐾🥰 #springerspaniel #workingspaniel #petgundog #dogtrainer #hebdenbridge #barnoldswick

I’ve been doing lots of shaping and trick training with my three recently, working on something different aside from all the gundog stuff. I have recently added a cue to 2 new shaped behaviours with Newt- sleepy and wave. I’ve also taught her to spin using the lure and reward method. Lastly I’ve spent time building duration on her nose touch. Most of these tricks serve no real purpose aside from having a bit of fun, relationship building and enrichment for Newt. However, I do like to have a decent repertoire of strong behaviours that my dogs have on cue, it can be useful when practising steadiness… can my dogs listen/discriminate different cues when they are in anticipation of being sent for a retrieve from example. Mostly though it’s just fun for me and the dogs. Newt is in season so we’ve been doing lots of heel work walks, lots of hanging around and chilling on walks/teaching her to do nothing. Today I thought I’d start to proof some of her recently acquired tricks when outside for something a little different. #springerspaniel #englishspringerspaniel #dogtrainer #hebdenbridge #westyorkshire

Trying to reign this feral beast in post season. There was definitely urgency in that there whistle, and it was longer than normal too! 🙊😂….My name is Gemma and I’m an emotional whistle blower 😂. You can’t see the pheasant flush but you can hear it, and you can see him watching it away. Not the sharpest stop, but I’ll take it as a starting point for the next 7 months of spaniel boot camp getting ready for the 25/26 season 😂🥳 #springerspaniel #workingspaniel #petgundog