Training a reliable stop or recall

I don't know anything about herding dogs, but I guess I am surprised that basic obedience using clicker or food rewards isn't first on the agenda. I was surprised to find that some respected pointing dog trainers don't start with basic obedience, as I would want a really solid recall on any dog I had that was expected to work ahead by its self.

Doug, that is the way the basic obedience IS taught, but there seems to be no reliabilty to this method. When exposed to stock, the dog just blows off the owner. I teach my dogs, on leash, that they MUST come when called off. The down is taught the same way. I start with treats and praise, then only praise. We are almost always off lead walking in the pastures, and with the groundwork the dogs have, I can down all seven dogs at once. It is almost a game with them, and the dust flies as they skid to a down from a run. These students do not seem to able to teach and enforce that the command is a command, not a request.

Hi Debbie, that was a good post.  I think many people who get on a soapbox and preach about certain methods while scorning others have little to no experience training WORKING dogs that are functioning in a completely different state of mind than your average house pet learning basic obedience and fun tricks.  Now I have a super limited experience with herding but I do train other types of work and in my experience, these dogs are not pansies, we don't need to tip-toe around the real training and work for fear of hurting their feelings.  They WANT to work!!  They WANT the handler to make it clear what is expected and what the boundaries are so they can get on with it and have fun!!  I assume the same is true for good herding dogs.  They have to have drive and stamina and power and courage just like a protection dog or a street K9 does.  These dogs don't need to be trained as if we are walking on eggshells.  If they make mistakes, people, other animals, or themselves can get hurt or worse.  There is no reason to train a solid working dog in the same method as you would, say, train a small fearful dog how to wave his paw.  Don't give commands you can't enforce, and if you aren't able to enforce it either because you don't want to or you can't control the dog with proper means, then do something else or take several steps back in the training.

debbieStx

These are dogs that compete in obedience, rally, and agility, so they have had training! The owners are afraid of losing control,

 

This may be the reason the dogs are ignoring the owners.  When people are accustomed to the obedience sports, which are so well defined and are run in such controlled settings, they probably feel lost at sea in a pen of sheep with a herding dog salivating to be let loose. lol  Of course the owners are increasing the excitement level by insisting on a tight leash, as you noted above.  Dogs can easily sense the owners lack of confidence and coupled with the excitement of livestock, I imagine it's a not uncommon problem for a dog to "forget" it's previous training.  Dogs don't generalize well and doing a beautiful down/stay in the ring is like night and day to the down required with livestock, from the dog's point of view.

I have no experience with training herding dogs.  I do have experience training retrievers and helping other people train their retrievers.  The first time I trained a few pointers, I spent so much time teaching them to heel, sit, stay, etc that they wouldn't get out and hunt. lol   It can be hard to shift gears whether it's the type of dog or the type of training with the same dog.

Try and give your students some confidence in their ability to enforce the commands the dogs already know.  A few quick sessions of obedience before the dog goes in the pen might be helpful.  I hope someone with some herding experience will come along with some advice. 

This might be helpful to pass on to some of your students.  It's a blog post concerning repeating commands.

http://www.theotherendoftheleash.com/repeating-cues-information-or-affect

Here's my 2 cents.I have two Aussies.They don't have titles but both have really nice obedience skills and come from working stock.I can call either off of wildlife turkey,deer,feral cats you name it but I live on 40 acres of wooded wetland that is teaming with critters.They've had practice daily with this stuff.It used to be herders were raised on farms and exposed very young to stock.Now it's become a sport instead of a way of life.I think for some dogs they need alot more exposure to just plain being around the stock without being expected to work.The excitement will subside given enough time and exposure.The first time Noel saw my horses I thought she would vibrate apart but after a few days of seeing them every day she couldn't have cared less.Also ,correct me if I'm wrong,but aren't the best herders allowed alot more freedom to do their jobs without someone telling them every time they can move?Isn't some of the thinking the dog's contribution?It sounds like your sheltie handler may be too controlling to effectively guide his/her dog in this sport.Herding seems to me alot like riding a cutting horse.Nothing will screw up the horse's performance more than a rider that gets in their way.

                                                       Tena 

I don't have any experience living with true stock dogs (herding dogs in general, yes, but not herding dogs who ARE herding), but I have terriers, so I have a lot of experience in obtaining solid recalls and stops when offleash.  I do Rally and Agility with my dogs, but foremost I LOVE to take them offleash in safe areas - beaches, fields, trails, woods, etc.  Anyone who has lived with a terrier, or multiple, knows they have their own unique challenges in regards to prey drive, independence, and how quick they react to their environment - after all, unlike herders or sporting breeds, they were bred to work independently of people, with little to no real training, which means they don't have the natural drive to check in with you, or follow along, like good working dogs "should" have.  A good "working terrier" is quite the opposite.  But when two months ago I called all four dogs off a fleeing fox while in pursuit, I can honestly say "I get it!".

People gawk and say "oh my gosh, you let your terriers offleash!??!".  But yes......I do.......and often. Heck, they do almost everything off leash except where they are in areas that the law dictates they are ON leash, because they all were raised (with the exception of one, my oldest...who had the least original training) in such a way that it was a normal part of life. My dogs don't get out of the fenced yard and go "freeeeeedom!!!!!" like so many dogs do, they go out and they turn around and say "What are we gonna do now pardner?".   That is a great feeling, and a feeling that you can't manufacture without the time it takes to develop a trusting relationship. But you can't "make" them respect you - you have to earn from them, just as they must earn it from you.

For me, and many others who don't just "live with dogs", but for whom "dogs are our lives", it goes beyond simple training. It's every interaction, every learning moment, how we manage the environment to set them up to succeed, prevent them from failing where necessary, and sometimes letting them MAKE mistakes to learn from them. It's a journey, not a six-week training class.  Many people who "live with dogs", just want to dabble in things and probably don't even have the lifestyle that allows them to be all that successul - around here, many people who "try herding" go to a workshop once a month or once every two months, and say their dogs "herd". It's a far cry from somebody who lives with a flock or herd and whose dog works on a daily basis. Many of those folks are doing nothing more different than one who attends an agility workshop once per month, and "does agility".

I believe clicker training can work fabulously in a herding program - it's the philosophy that's important, not the clicker itself.  Using a marker to mark appropriate behaviour (for things like the stop, the down, the recall) can really aid learning no matter area you are working in, and I know it works, because there are many dogs who have learned some control behaviours for herding with the aid of a marker. Not all, necessarily, but some. It doesn't mean the reward has to be food or toys (although I'm sure there is a time and place for it as well, like any reward), in many cases the reward would very well be to work the stock, but one might very well use food at certain stages to reward behaviours in which the stock is not immediately available as reward.  I know with my terriers, I can't generally reward them with what they want - the squirrel, the fox, the bird (although they have caught and killed birds within the property with a quick jump-n-grab) - so I have to be able to find alternative means of reinforcement for them! And I don't have enough controlled access to "proof" for every type of wildlife, as I don't have a fox and bunny in my basement to bring out when I need to practice, so it's imperative that my dogs will work for external rewards. I would think that for most of these dogs you are teaching, it's true for them as well.

The fact that these dogs are trained in Rally, Agility, Obedience, etc, simply means that these dogs haven't been proofed around the distractions of livestock, and haven't worked around them before. It doesn't mean they aren't otherwise very well-trained dogs.  Take my dogs and throw them in a pen with sheep, they may not be perfect right away either! Good trainers understand generalizing, and how poor dogs tend to be at it, and good trainers also understand the concept of threshold, and how to control the situation so dogs don't get too stimulated right off the bat, or if they do, how to work that dog's threshold to bring them back into thinking again.

I have limited experience working my aussies on sheep but I was able to get a stop/down/stand before we quit and switched activities. The stop has to be the hardest thing I think that I have ever had to train. (In search and rescue, we also need a stop on recall) anyway, Neiko, my oldest aussie has pretty good obedience but all that flew out the window when we were on sheep. Like someone else said, he would sit and shake waiting to be releashed to work. I think it's a very good point that more exposure calms the dog down. Regardless, We never worked on a line. My dogs were leash free after day 1. The trainer taught me how to move with the sheep so that I could step in front and stop the dog when I needed. You definitely have to be a strong handler to get the dog to stop mid stride. I don't think a clicker or treats would work at all. The reward for the dog for stopping is to allow the dog to work again. So, when my dog would get out of control, I would step in front, claim the space around the herd and not allow the dog access, once the dog stopped and checked itself, I would immediately give up the space around the herd and let the dog get back to business. This trainer had pretty slow sticky sheep btw. Another trainer of mine had very fast sheep so it was more difficult to claim the space, but you could still do it in a small beginner pen. Btw, we moved to the large pen before we were ready and all hell broke loose, but thats another story ;p

Outside of herding, I worked on a stand command as well as the down on recall. That eventually carried over to herding. Also, while my trainer much preferred my dog to perform the lie down to take the pressure off the sheep, we both noticed that the stand was much more reliable on this dog and he clearly preferred to stand vs lie down, so we used that more often.

I'm working one of my other sar dogs on the stop and it is just as difficult to train as I remember. Oy!

Jewlieee

I don't think a clicker or treats would work at all. The reward for the dog for stopping is to allow the dog to work again. So, when my dog would get out of control, I would step in front, claim the space around the herd and not allow the dog access, once the dog stopped and checked itself, I would immediately give up the space around the herd and let the dog get back to business.

But the clicker is only an information tool - it tells the dog what behaviour earned the reward - that reward being to allow the dog to work again. Using a marker in any form of training can really make the dog's understanding of what its behaviour means truly black and white to the dog.

I agree, though, that in that situation treats would not likely be the best choice, or even an effective choice.  It's all about understanding motivation and understanding what reward fits the bill at that moment.

But I just wanted to point out to folks who are learning, the value of the clicker has nothing to do with food, or toys. A clicker is not a reward. It is simply a communication tool.  It is information. It has to do with the clear communication simply in telling the dog precisely just what behaviour earned the dog the privelege to work sheep again.  You can of course do it without a marker, no question, but in many cases using a marker (verbal, whistle, clicker, whatever) may speed the process of understanding, with fewer errors than simple trial-and-error as the dog guesses what works and what doesn't, and as a result the dogs works with less frustrations (well, frustration can be good for some forms of learning, so I'll say less unnecessary frustrations).  

 Yes, I totally understand that the click is not the reward but the marker, just like the word yes is used as a marker. The reward here is releasing the dog to work the sheep, hopefully that is clear in my original post. I personally would not chose to use a clicker on sheep. Timing and coordination would be difficult. Sometimes silence and body language is better and imo body language is the way to go when working on this type of behavior on sheep. Just like a dog puts pressure on sheep to move them, the handler puts pressure on the dog to stop or redirect it. Take the pressure off and the dog goes back to work.

This type of body language was key working Lily on sheep. She is an extremely soft dog. One trainer said Lily was not cut out for herding. My other trainer taught me how to use my body language to control Lily on sheep. If I full on faced her, she stopped working and shut down (too much pressure), if I turned my back to her, she worked happily. So, I used half turns toward her to get her to change directions or I would fully face her to get her to back off. Once she did, I turned around and she went back to work. We didn't need to use clickers (she is clicker trained), just body language.

Jewlieee

Sometimes silence and body language is better

I totally agree with this.  I use spatial pressure all the time with dogs.

I just think like with anything we teach, there is no one-technique-fits-all approach. 

There may be times that using a long line is a great option, there may be times that using spatial pressure is most effective, there may be times that using a marker is the best bet (perhaps for marking concrete cued behaviours like stop, down, and come), and there may be times in an emergency where a strong verbal interrupter is necessary (I don't feel this is true for teaching general pet manners or most dogs sports like Rally, Obedience, or Agility, but in working dogs where risks may be high, you -might- need to do so if things get hairy in a hurry, but hopefully it is very rare).  I think the best trainers use ALL of these tools in the toolboxx on any given day, and know how to switch from one to another, as needed, very fluidly and cleanly.

The key, too, to great training is knowing thy dog. With very soft and sensitive dogs, using too much spatial pressure may turn them off entirely, whereas with very hard dogs you may have to make your spatial awareness very clear. 

Every dog I have I work slightly differently, whether it be tricks, agility, recall training, or Rally.  Even though they are all the same breed and outwardly all of my training follows a reward-based approach.  Gaci is a much harder dog (although very sensitive to tone, and is actually insecure in many situations), Shimmer is highly sensitive and soft, Kash is just happy-go-lucky and forgiving, and Zipper, well, he's not motivated to work much so we don't do much "stuff". LOL.

I know nothing about training herding dogs,  but when I read the first post, my immediate thought was do they really know the job/work? Do the handlers have a really clear understanding of the job the dogs are doing and what they need to do to do the job--not just what it looks like, but what it feels like, etc. and what their (the handler's) roles are? Just an idea.

I love clicker training but for me it has little to no value when working dogs in a much higher state of arousal.  A lot of what I do with my dogs is just channeling drive, it's not really "training" in the same category as, say, clicker training a shaped retrieve.  The dog comes out of the womb with all the right skills, I'm just there to add in some cues, some secondary control, and channel that drive into useful behaviors.  In protection, we deal a lot with getting a dog to change drives.  It's not really something that you can mark and put on cue.  Also, doing stuff like protection work and herding, it's not really easy to charge the clicker.  I prefer to use the clicker for training behaviors and chains of behavior that a dog is never going to offer on his own.  Dogs also *need* to have boundaries when working.  I like Julie's example of getting in front of the dog and controlling the space.  It doesn't have to mean checking the dog or using a prong collar, but when the handler owns the space and sets some boundaries the dog understands this.

Liesje

I love clicker training but for me it has little to no value when working dogs in a much higher state of arousal.  A lot of what I do with my dogs is just channeling drive,

I think that is really well put. Bugsy although of unknown heritage is a 'working' dog with regard to drive. Once I figured out what made him tick (working) he's been much easier to handle.

The task has been for ME to figure out how to channel his drive. Which in coming back to the OP's situation points the finger at the owners needing to understand their own dogs and the task at hand

I also agree with Julie that having to learn appropriate body language is essential for the owner/trainer.

There is no reward I could offer B when he is amped BUT he will respond to the right cues and using my body is essential

FWIW he IMO is of a versatile gundog heritage, more pointing than retrieving so I have no experience with herding breeds