Can we over train our dog? I feel we must allow our dog a certain amount of independence. That independence will one day come into its own. So the question is: does training take that independence out of your dog?
In my experience, training my own dogs and seeing other dogs work, and judging dogs I would have to say, “yes” - over training ---not training--- but over training will leave the dog short of independence, if not totally dependent on the handler.
It may well be that the handlers themselves end up finding the game for the dogs. The task as a team is to find game, but I fear many handlers are taking over the role as “game finder”. The dog becoming almost just a basket, to carry the game back to the handler.
A friend of mine bought a Novice Field Trial winning dog in the hope he would get into field trials riding on the back of this dog. To cut a long story short, he did not enjoy the pressure of field trials and soon went back to his rough shooting. He brought his new dog out consistently with him, shooting wild duck, but in the end, he had to go back to using his old bitch. He was losing too much game because the dog was so reliant on the handler that the dog was almost useless as an independent game finder.
The dog basically wanted my friend to handle him on to the birds. This was a prime case of a dog being over trained, to the point he had lost that independence that I feel top class game finders must have.
So the question is, what steps do we have to take in our training so we can avoid this trap?
I welcome your thoughts.
---- by Paul David Toal ---- ALTIQUIN LABRADORS