My Mom the Whistle Blower

My 2lggd mom played a new clicker game with me today. She was giving me the sit hand signal, and I was sitting, but then at the same time she started putting this thing in her mouth and making this loud whistle noise. She had the thing hanging around her neck. At first when I heard it, I found the sound a little distracting. I got confused, and forgot that I was supposed to sit for the hand signal. But then I figured out that the whistle sound meant sit TOO! After that, the biscuits came really fast! FUN! (Yum).

I think that I could learn a lot from the ways that hunting dogs are trained. The only problem is that too much of that training involves coercion (shock collars, ear pinches, and so on). Emma and I just do not train that way; I will only use positive motivation. The only things Emma gets punished for are things that are always patently wrong (such as climbing up onto the desk to eat cat food out of the kitties' LeBistro).

Last week I saw a couple of videos of Lindsay Ridgeway working with his Golden Retrievers, Lumi (age 4) and Laddie (age 4 months). Lindsay dislikes coercive training methods just as I do. The "Pinball Drill" shown in these videos is an exercise that Lindsay is using to teach the dogs the "handling" cues to direct them to retrieves in the field. I can see that such fine control to direct the dog at a distance would be just as useful in PWD waterwork. Whether its dead birds, or fishing gear, a retrieve is a retrieve, right?

I joined the Dog Trek group so that I could learn more about this pinball drill, and how Lindsay trained it. He provided an excellent explanation. For me, teaching the whistle sit is the first step. The whistle sit is used to cue the dog to stop and visually check in with the handler for a new directional cue. When the dogs are working in the water, they apparently have no problem translating the "sit" as stop and swim in a tight little circle to check in for another hand signal. I got out the whistle which I once used for teaching sailing to 10 year olds, and we got to work. Right now, I am continuing this work, trying for more distance. At greater distances, Emma has a tendency to want to step toward me before sitting, so we are working on that, reinforcing only the prompt sits, ignoring the traveling sits.

An unanticipated minor problem: now when Emma sees me with the whistle she starts offering uncued sits.

Here are the LL&L videos:



Laddie, at only 4 months then, is astonishing! Such a great testament to clicker training.



And Lumi is such perfection, she is a joy to watch.

Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom

PWD Portie Portuguese Water Dog work waterwork clicker training whistle sit