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Being a gun canine man for many of my life, I seldom discover issues extra fulfilling than experiencing the partnership of looking with a well-trained chicken canine within the discipline.
There’s immense satisfaction in dealing with a lab with whistle instructions and hand alerts on a blind retrieve as I information it to a duck. Or to be within the uplands gingerly stepping round a setter intensely locked on level to a woodcock or grouse. These are the moments I reside for when the leaves begin to change color. Fortunately, issues don’t cease for me on the finish of the season, as there may be all the time extra canine coaching to finish. This 12 months is not any totally different, as we welcomed a brand new purple setter pet into our residence.
Except for a correct kennel (canine crate), a useful merchandise I exploit for coaching the brand new pup is a spot board.
Functions
A spot board helps the connection between canine and coach, performing because the canine’s residence base. Because the kennel is a web site of familiarity and safety for a pet, a spot board turns into a location for supportive conditioning. It supplies a coaching area with a definite boundary. Visually and bodily, it’s simply outlined by each canine and handler and turns into a theatre for introducing a pet to formal obedience coaching. With its want to please, a pup quickly learns to like the place board and can reply to it very enthusiastically. As a coach, it places you accountable for each facet of the coaching course of and might guarantee a very good expertise and well timed corrections. It’s the bodily confines of the place board which permit for this to happen. The board turns into the spot the place the pup may give you its full consideration. When on the board, they acknowledge it as a time to work, and as any instructor will let you know, getting a pupil is probably the most vital a part of the lesson.
Steadiness coaching
Steadiness is key in obedience coaching for all working canine, whether or not a retriever or a pointing breed. That is the place the place board shines. Searching canine are bred for his or her pure game-finding skills. For a retriever, it’s to see and fetch shot birds. For a pointer, it’s to search out and level reside birds. A retriever doesn’t must learn to retrieve, it must know how one can be regular and calm in a duck blind and retrieve shot birds underneath management. A pointer doesn’t must learn to level, it must know how one can maintain level (whoa) and be regular to flush. A spot board helps prepare these important qualities.
Retrievers and pointers
Initially, I used a spot board to show retrievers to sit down and keep. For a pointer, it’s to show stand and keep. Coaching with a spot board can start on the most simple stage when the pup first comes residence. Leash work may be launched on the similar time. Because the pet develops and turns into proficient with fundamental instructions, different instructions may be added to acquire the identical desired response.
For instance, a canine that has been taught to sit down with the verbal command of “sit” may study to sit down with a toot of a whistle or with a hand sign. For a retriever, that is the start stage of studying blind retrieves.
In coaching a pointer, the place board helps with overlaying the command of whoa as soon as the canine has realized to face quietly with all 4 ft on the floor. It offers the canine a considerable bodily barrier for placing on the brakes rapidly as quickly because it steps in place from a stroll or run. Performing the identical train on the grass, there is no such thing as a clear spot for the canine to cease, making it straightforward for the canine to be sloppy by taking an additional step or two. That creates a gray space for a canine and might simply result in creeping whereas on some extent.
Extending place board coaching
A spot board may introduce canine to reside birds, resembling coaching pigeons. As soon as once more, it will reinforce steadiness for flushing birds. In a short while, the canine may even begin to affiliate a wild flush with the preliminary instructions of sit or whoa. That is the way you prepare a canine to be regular to flush. I additionally use a spot board once I introduce a canine to gunfire. As a result of the board has develop into a spot of familiarity and luxury, gunfire will probably be simpler for the canine to get used to. As soon as once more, the gunshot sound can develop into an overlaid command for sit. I additionally begin retrieving drills from the place board. It really works effectively for coaching a canine to ship a chicken at hand within the desired style. For instance, the board may be positioned within the heel place or in entrance of the handler to obtain a chicken. The place board being so simply transported, can be positioned in a duck blind. Place boards are very versatile and can be utilized with many various coaching kinds. They’re additionally excellent for e-collar conditioning.
Place boards are a useful coaching software for looking canine. They’re the cornerstone for instructing good fundamentals and may be utilized all through the coaching course of. A spot board promotes constant dealing with and likewise to have management over making well timed corrections, so the canine understands what it’s that the coach wishes. It helps create a powerful bond and belief with a canine, serving to forge partnerships that may final a lifetime.
Initially printed within the Jan.-Feb. 2023 problem of Ontario OUT of DOORS journal
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