Quote of the day for the rest of us

The pull quote in the Upland Almanac story is inane:

The real secret with training hunting dogs is to never let them disobey.

Well, that horse is out of the barn.  Is it time to give up?

The rest of the story provides the context for the pull quote and a lot of information:

The real secret with training hunting dogs is never let them disobey.  If the do, stop them in their tracks and return them to the site of their misdeed and make them repeat the task correctly.  Repetition, repetition and more repetition train hunting dogs.  That is, repetition of correct behavior.

That's helpful advice and a good quote of the day for every amateur trainer.

Larsen and I can do our backyard drills ("here boy", "hup", "heel", "stay", "down").  We actually have fun, we zig-zag around some orange cones periodically, fetch a few things, and earn a treat or two every now and then.  Over and over again.

The Upland Alamnac article (John McGonigle, "Replacing Cruelty with Patience and Repetition," The Upland Almanac, Autumn 2010, p. 37 (not available online yet)) provides some other pointers.
Here's one that would have been useful to me last July.   

You must be quick to crack down on his misdeeds. You will likely find yourself chasing pup down and returning him to the scene of his crime.


If you can comfortably do so, [pick] pup up by the sides of his neck [and march him to the scene of the crime]. If you cannot do so easily, pull him by his collar towards his infraction and spin him in a circle once or twice and then correct him right there. Spinning him disorients him slightly and allows your correction to sink in even without fully returning to where he was.

That is helpful advice for those meltdown situations where there is no way either one of you can even remember where the infraction first occurred let alone find your path back to it.