Gundog Training - Placeboard Sit Stay and Recall 

Thanks Tony I appreciate the tips. This one was filmed a little while back now so I’m pleased to say she become a lot since then. Glad you’re enjoying the videos 😊

Spaniel Training Diaries Cockers are live wires 😂 Springers are so different. Great dogs each of them 👌👌

Thanks Mark always interesting to here other views. But yes I think I agree. For when we’re actually working I’m not worried if she lays down, in fact I would love it as it would mean she was more chilled and steady! 😂

Spaniel Training Diaries Absolutely, a relaxed dog is a happy dog and owner. I would rather a dog lying down than running in to the shooting line and playing havoc.

That your I’m glad you’re enjoying them! We made our placeboards ourselves and they were 60cm x38cm x8cm, but the exact size doesn’t matter as long as it’s big enough for your dog to sit and stand on and raised so it’s not flush to the ground then it will do the trick. It depends how much you want to spend I know some people that use decking titles and then just glue a bit of turf on top, you can make your own, sporting Saint sell them for around £30 or you can get a proper fancy Cato Board which I think are around £60. The treat pouch I used in this video was just one from Amazon but it only lasted us a year and then disintegrated so definitely not good quality. I know use one from the trainers pouch which is more expensive but has been going strong for a couple of years now. The links below: thetrainerspouch.com I hope that helps! 😊

So I don’t really have a stay cue, for me the sit cue means sit and stay their until I either give you another cue or release you. I do sometimes out of habit say wait but I haven’t trained that as a cue. If you find she moves when you do I would start by focusing on teaching her to sit and stay sat for 10 seconds whilst you stand by her. Once she can do that I would then break the movement down of the first step into easier smaller movements. So ask her to sit and then lift your foot slightly of the floor then if she stays sat click and reward, when she can do a couple of those successfully in a row then move on to lifting your foot off the floor and moving it forward, as if you were going to take a step but don’t transfer your weight and mark and reward her for staying sat. Then when she can do that successfully move one foot forward and transfer your weight onto it whilst keeping the other foot firmly planted where it was. Then when she can do that you can look to take 1 full step away then step back to her and reward. Once you can do once step reliably then just build up your distance one step at a time but always go back to her to mark and reward so you don’t encourage her to break the sit before you’ve marked it. I use my legs as a cue so if I want my dog to walk with me I step of with the leg closest to them, and if I want them to stay where they are I use the leg furthest away from them so you may want to think about that as well. I hope that helps!

I use JR Pet Products pate for most of my training sessions now. However when Ivy first came home she wasn’t interested in food at all, it was a struggle to get her to each her meals. So I used to feed all of her daily meal allowance of kibble through training, socialisation or engagement games for a good few months, she would never get it delivered in a bowl just to eat. I would do most of our training at home which helped as there were less environmental distraction but we were able to do some outside as she was in her stage of being very dependant on me. But whether at home or outside I would deliver the kibble in more exciting ways. When she was that age we were only training the real basics so for example I would teach a sit, I would mark when her bum hit the ground and then skim the piece of kibble across the floor for her to chase. Or when doing a little recall as she came back to me I would scatter a few pieces of kibble in a blanket or in the grass and encourage her to sniff and search for it. But delivering the food in a way that enabled her to perform a behaviour that was intrinsically motivating was the key for us. So anything that allowed her to re-enact part of the predatory pray sequence; eye stalk, chase, sniff/search, catch etc worked well for us. I hope that helps!

Please never apologise for asking questions! I use the placeboard as it helps to create really clear criteria for both the dog and for me as a handler. Which helps the dog to learn behaviours faster because they understand exactly what is required and I also find dogs focus levels improve when using the board. So for instance, when teaching a sit stay with a board it is very obvious to both the dog and owner if they come out of position becaue they no longer have all feet on the board. Whereas when not using a board it is very easy for the dog to shuffle or creep out of position and, particularly if you are walking away with your back turned, the creeping can easily go unnoticed and then get unintentionally rewarded. Which inturn means that the creeping behaviour is more likely to be repeated again in the future. It is also great for teaching the dog excatly where you want them to be; so I have found it to be invaluable when teaching Ivy to recall and stop directly in front of me and when teach her to come straight back with a retrieve rather than whizzing around me in circles. This worked because the board gave her a specific place to focus on and target, and she only got reinforcement when she was on the board in front of me so the criteria was really clear for both of us. Then overtime time as we have strenghtened those behaviours I have then been able to phased the board out and still achieve success. Jane Ardern, who is a trainer that I really rate has got a short article which explains why she uses placeboard if you are interested in reading a bit more: videotutorials.clickertrainer.co.uk/2018/12/10/why-i-use-placeboards-for-training/#:~:text=With%20the%20placeboard%20being%20raised,support%20many%20gundog%20training%20exercises.&text=For%20me%20this%20is%20the%20key%20to%20successful%20placeboard%20training.

I use the word “break” as my release cue as it’s not a word I would drop in to a conversation or situation accidentally but you can pair it release with whatever word makes sense to you. 😊

I’m glad you like it. Yes, exactly that the aim is to teach the concept of steadiness and I do fade out the board once they are starting to understand the concept.

Hi Alan, in this video she does try to follow me as I walk away at about 6:55 minutes in and I show how I handle that. But I don’t have a video of it happening a lot because the way I aim to structure my training is that we build up success with lots of little layers of small criteria increases so I aim for error free early learning as much as possible. Plus, when I started doing these videos Ivy was already about 6/7 months so I had already taught her foundation sit behaviour and I didn’t think to video it at the time as the channel wasn’t up and running at that point. So sorry I can’t offer anything else at this stage.

I found my dogs really like JR Pet Products pate which is what I use for pretty much all our training sessions. I can get you 10% refer a friend code if you wanted to try some. 😊

Thank you Julian, I’m glad you’re enjoying them! The visual cue I was using was me raising my hand to about shoulder height presenting my open palm towards Ivy (✋). I think it good to have both verbal and physical cues that work but at this point in training I was finding she was responding more to the physical cue than the verbal. So to help strengthen the verbal cue I need to temporarily phase out using the hand signal. However, now that we are further on it are training I do use both depending on the situation 😊

Tony Bennett I’m sorry but I totally disagree, Why would you not bring the training to an outside environment? Surely the dog needs to experience smells in different environments while still being trained, how boring would it be to Tori or her dogs to be confined to a garden or house just for training?

markroper79 boredom is surely a byproduct of all training. Inside outside can be tailored. I mix it up . If it’s not what I feel is acceptable I change it. As with each stage not all goes to plan . We have to adapt. Still your entitled to your opinion 👌