u/Ok_Ear_5266

Once collar conditioned, how often are you continuing to maintain/reinforce commands with the collar?

My dog recently finished collar conditioning to fetch, and previously we conditioned here and sit. Next were collar conditioning on force to pile. But on the commands you have already successfully conditioned, how often and to what frequency are you continuing to use nicks?

A few days ago, I made a post to inquire about the perspectives of those that believe in investing resources into aggressive/bite risk dogs. The post got a lot of responses and I learned some perspectives from the other side of the viewpoint. Eventually, though, the responses became focused on the tangential issue of Pitbulls. In the hopes of having a similarly engaging conversation, I wanted to make a separate post.

The specific questions that I’m interested to hear from the dog rescue community:

• Why are pitbulls and pit mixes the majority type of dog that fills the shelters?
• why are pitbulls and pit mixes seemingly the majority of behavioral problem dogs?
• and perhaps the nucleus of the question: do the problem dogs have these issues because they are pitbulls?
• should there be more stringent regulations on pitbull adoption and lower threshold for behavioral euthanasia?
• is there a place in society for dogs from fighting bloodlines?

While I am not involved in dog rescue, I am involved in dog sports and I’m generally interested in canine topics. But my opinion on rescues and pitbulls is admittedly uninformed. That said, I’ll provide my thoughts:

I think the over representation of pitbulls in shelters is due to primarily social reasons and the relationship between pitbull ownership, socio economic disenfranchisement and the effect on responsible ownership. I do think that pitbulls are inherently more likely to seriously bite given their history as fighting dogs and breeding for gameness, however, I also think that there are a lot of pitbull and pit mixes that are extremely detached from their gamebred ancestors. Additionally, I think a lot of “bully” mixes nowadays really aren’t pitbulls.

I am curious to hear from more experienced people in the rescue industry who agree and disagree.

This post is not intended to be inflammatory but rather to be an honest discussion where I can hopefully learn a differing point of view.

Reddit has been pushing a lot of posts and subs on my feed about dogs that need to be rescued before euthanasia. Inevitably, every single one of these dogs is a pitbull mix with a bite history and dog and/or child aggression. Many of the posts on each thread exclaim that the dog must be saved and what a sweet baby it is.

This has left me confused because I don’t understand this perspective. There is a finite amount of resources available to invest in a never ending supply of dogs that need to be rescued. Should the resources not be prioritized to the vast amount of shelter dogs without severe behavioral issues? What good does it do to rehome a traumatized and aggressive pitbull when there are countless others that could take its spot and not be a bite risk?

In one especially extreme post, the dog that needed to be rescued had a history of killing another dog but the posters insisted it could still be a good pet for the right owner. Perhaps that is true, but that same owner could adopt a dog that is in the shelter and has not killed another animal.

For those on the other side of the table, can you explain the ideology of investing resources into saving aggressive and dangerous dogs?

As the title says, any tips for developing calm behavior in the holding blind? My dog is steady at the line, but in a holding blind she is losing her mind and would break off to take another dogs mark if it wasn’t for the check cord. The other issue this creates is that when she does get to the line after waiting in the blind, she can be frantic which compromises performance. She’s great at heeling normally, but when it’s time to walk up to the blind or line, she is near uncontrollable and the check cord is pulled taught. She is steady at the line though.

Any specifics tips aside from just maturity and desensitization?

Related, she has a very hard time waiting in her crate when she can hear duck calls, gunshots and sees other dogs running.

I love the enthusiasm but I also need her to act appropriately coming up to the blind and not get so frantic from waiting that her performance suffers.

Does anyone here have a retriever trained to quarter and flush as well as retrieve?

Interestingly, in Hunt Tests, Labs can enter pointing and flushing tests but Goldens can only enter flushing tests. I assume this is because there is an established line of labs that hold point and outside of that, retrievers naturally flush.

Curious if anyone has really trained their retriever (not just their baseline genetic behaviors but actually fine tuned it) to be completely versatile and quarter, flush and retrieve birds and enter flushing hunt tests with success. I was thinking this could be a fun secondary training project behind traditional waterfowl retrieving.

EDIT: my original post seemed not to be that clear so I want to specify I’m talking about entering a retriever in a flushing hunt test.

I’m introducing (silent) casting to my 17mo golden. Previously we’ve worked on some foundation of directional arm/hand signals meaning “something” but not formalized. We’re starting with angle back casting.

The obstacle that I’ve noticed is that my dog is steady and I’ve worked very hard to make sure she is. But with casting, shes supposed to be released in a direction with a nonverbal signal. I can tell this is confusing to her because she knows she isn’t supposed to go unless she hears “okay” or “back”.

If I pair the casting with the release word, she understands the direction very well, but when silent, she is visibly unsure about being released.

Any tips on overcoming this without sacrificing steadiness?

How many people here compete in hunt tests and field trials vs who here is actually hunting? And what’s your opinion on the ability of a competition dog actually hunting and vice versa?

My field golden is currently 17 months and once the season begin, we’ll be competing in AKC and UKC hunt tests. Ultimately would like to try field trials but want to get her titled to a standard first.

I train in a group with a few people that only do real hunting, and consistently I hear comments that the competitions - especially field trials - become so complex at upper levels that it no longer represents any realistic hunting scenarios and the dogs that excel at each have less and less crossover

Edit: I should clarify I’m talking about retriever hunt tests though I am also interested to hear from the pointing/flushing people.