The first step is to give the dog speed—to make it come as fast as its legs will carry it when called. For this we use the ball and a great deal of repetition. We prevent this repetition from ruining the down and stand stays by the simple expedient of not using them to practice the recall. Instead of leaving the dog on a stay we give the animal to an assistant, who keeps it from following the handler by holding the dog’s collar.
The handler leaves his dog with the assistant and runs away across the field. The dog is under no command at all. It is free to bark and lunge and surge into the collar, and its handler encourages it to do so by calling to it excitedly and throwing the ball up in the air. The handler runs perhaps sixty or seventy yards, until the dog’s frustration at watching him go drives the animal into a perfect frenzy of excitement. The handler then turns to face the dog, pauses and, in very formal posture and voice, calls “Come!” The assistant releases the animal, which vents its frustration by sprinting into a dead run toward its master.
When the animal draws near, within twenty or thirty feet of its handler and coming in fast, the handler suddenly throws the ball. The direction of the throw is important: The handler always throws the ball behind him, over his shoulder or between his legs, in order to bring the dog in straight. The animal will spring closely past him, grab the ball and then the handler praises it exuberantly.
Quite naturally and properly, coming to its master will soon be the dog’s favorite obedience exercise.
The next step is to teach the dog to sit close and straight in front when it comes to its handler. We cannot accomplish this by running long recalls across the field, because a well-motivated dog will come scorching in and undoubtedly bounce off the handler (being knocked down is not uncommon) and then sit crookedly. So, we teach the dog to come-fore perfectly from a short distance before we ever ask it to do so from all the way across the field.
The handler begins by repeatedly calling the dog from a sit stay, but no farther than one leash length, so that the animal stays calm and moves slowly. By using his hands and the ball to attract the dog to the middle of his body, the handler can center the animal perfectly. Each time the dog starts to sit crookedly, the handler steps back a pace, repeating the “Come! Sit!” commands, and again attempts to guide the dog into a straight come-fore position. Only when the dog is sitting straight and close does the handler throw the ball.
When the handler wishes to practice his dog’s finish, there is no need to run repeated recalls. Instead, he merely sits his dog, steps in front of the animal to the come-fore position and then gives the “Heel!” command. Once the dog reaches his left side and sits, the handler can reward it with the ball or step in front of the animal and finish it again.
In this way, we can school the finish as much as we wish while still keeping it compartmentalized from the recall and come-fore.
GOAL 5: The dog will not confuse the different exercises out of motion and will keep all the parts of the exercises clean and distinct.
At this point, we have taught all of the constituent parts of the exercises out of motion:
1. The sit, down and stand in motion
2. The recall and come-fore
3. The finish
We have also been careful to keep them separate and distinct from each other in the dog’s mind. Now we must gather them all together so that they mesh into polished and impressively executed exercises.
Important Concepts for Meeting the Goal
1. Differentiating the commands
2. Randomizing the recall and finish exercises
When the dog has good exercises in motion it reacts very quickly—meaning that it stops as though it had hit a wall. The animal has just a fraction of a second in which to discriminate which command it is hearing and decide what to do—sit, lie down or stand. It is therefore vital that the handler take pains to differentiate the commands, making them sound as different from each other as possible: The “Sit!” command is upwardly inflected. It is a gentle, high-pitched command beginning with a distinct hiss. The “Down!” is guttural, compelling and authoritative in tone. It comes from the belly. The “Back!” is staccato and clipped-off (“Bek!”).
We never recall the dog from the down and the running stand until it has perfectly mastered all four of the exercises in motion, and the come-fore position as well. Even once we do begin recalling the animal from the down and the stand, we do not make a constant habit of it, because anticipation can still be a problem for us. If we are not careful, we will inadvertently untrain the exercises we have worked so hard to teach.
Instead, the dog is seldom recalled from the exercises in motion, and this is done completely randomly, so that the dog has no idea when it will be recalled and when not. Although the handler runs thirty or forty paces up the field, stops, turns and faces his dog as he would in a trial before giving the “Come!” command, most of the time he just returns to the dog and praises it.
Likewise, most of the time when we recall the dog formally (across a long distance and complete with a come-fore) we do not finish the animal. Instead, we do most of our practice on the finish isolated from the recall.
All the pieces of the exercises in motion and the recalls are kept separate from each other and well polished in training; they are fitted together only during trials and during a few practice sessions leading up to the trials.
12
Obedience: Retrieves, Obstacles and Send Away
We Leave the two most difficult obedience exercises, the retrieves and the send away, for last.
GOAL 1: The dog will retrieve the dumbbell quickly and reliably and without tossing or chewing it.
It seems ironic that the retrieves are difficult, because we have insisted throughout this book that, for Schutzhund competition, one must have a dog that is a strong natural retriever. A dog like this will happily retrieve a heavy balk of timber, and certainly a light wooden dumbbell. It seems a simple thing to interest this dog in the dumbbell, and throw it and then send the animal after it while it is still rolling. A good retriever will certainly go and bring it back. The problem is the way the dog brings it back. Because the animal is motivated by prey drive and play, and because it is terribly happy and pleased with itself, the dog chews the dumbbell, rolls or tosses it in its mouth and maybe even drops it on the ground, the way it habitually does with its ball.
If, in trial, the dog plays like this with the dumbbell on each retrieve, it will lose twelve points in all. Assuming that the animal performed perfectly in all the other obedience exercises and did not lose another point (an unlikely prospect), it would still be down to an obedience score of eighty-eight—far below the ninety-six points required for an Excellent rating, and low enough to cost its handler a lot of trophies.
Therefore, most Schutzhund trainers teach their dogs a forced retrieve because, by making the retrieve an obligation instead of a game, it cures the dog of playing with the dumbbell.