Rebuilding the Engine by Dave Palmstein

As handlers and dogs progress through levels of training and experience they have plenty
to be thankful for. They see their dogs perform their first retrieves, snatch up a meaty
double at the seasoned level or handle crisply to a challenging blind in finished. All these
are reasons to make the handler feel good about their dogs.

But as human nature would have it, when things don’t go as planned, we tend to get
frustrated, and often doubt ourselves and our dogs. What’s the answer? Hire a pro? Slow
down the training? Train more often? New tactics? As things go wrong, we have a
tendency to try anything that we think might work.

OK. I admit it, Winston and I have been in one of those “slumps”. Although books are
useful, they tend to tell you the correct way to train dogs the right way. Because there is
such a wide variety of potential problems, it is virtually impossible to write about all
problems that can be encountered. Pros are definitely a good option. They probably have
seen and overcome every problem we will ever encounter but they can be expensive and
they are not always available when you need them. So how about getting a little help
from your friends and tackle the problems yourself. In the long run, you will become a
better trainer, understand your dog better and increase your and your dog’s confidence. If
you run into problems in the field or in the swamp umpteen miles from nowhere, you
most likely will have nobody to turn to. Knowing how to approach the problem may just
mean the difference between a successful hunt and you coming home in frustration.

When your car, lawn mower or outboard falters, your mechanic takes a rather methodical
approach to fixing the problem. First he diagnoses the problem, dismantles the necessary
assemblies and rebuilds the entire unit, replacing the faulty parts as necessary. He relies
on his experience and a basic approach to diagnose the problems more than a scripted
process to determine what’s wrong. His approach is to isolate the problem down to the
smallest element so he can pinpoint the malfunctioning part and repair or replace it as
necessary. He uses wrenches, diagnostic machines and timing lights among other tools to
perform these tasks.

In dog training we can take a similar approach. Our tools are drills, training aids,
whistles and our hunting buddies that help us.

Using Winston and I as an example of what not to do at a hunt test, we went to the
finished line at the SCHRC hunt test in Blanca, CO.  Being a young dog and not having passed
his first finished test, my expectations weren’t real high. But then again, I did not think
the results would be as drastic as they were. The excitement and stresses at the finished
level were too much for him to take. His whistle responses on the water blinds were non-existent,
he ran the shore on the marks, dropped a bird on the land retrieve and crept a
good five yards on the marks. When he did calm down enough to respond to the whistle,
his “overs” turned to backs and visa versa.

To put it in mechanical terms, Winston’s throttle linkage came off causing the engine to
rev up uncontrollably until an electronic ignition chip fried in his brain. This caused a
power surge to the drive train which made him run madly back and forth on the blind
until he blew a head gasket and finally came to a gliding stop totally oblivious to any of
the driver’s continuous brake stomping.

So as I drove home I mentally started to plan out the rebuilding of Winston from an
unproven four wheel drive to a smooth running power machine prepared for the next
tractor pull.

The first step was to diagnose what went wrong. We had trained on all the elements.
Triple marks, blinds, steady and honor had all been part of the program. So what had
gone wrong. The only way to find out was to try to recreate the environment and find out
how he reacted. I set up a similar test the next day while it was fresh in our minds. Sure
enough the results were less than positive.

With a little help from my friends, we broke the test down into the finest of increments.
We reviewed him coming to the line, line manners, sitting, marking, memory, following
the gun to the fall, whistle sits, lining, overs and backs. You get the point. We did this
with no suction and then with suction. The suction and excitement indicative of hunt
tests made major problems unbearable and exacerbated minor problems to the point that
subtle control flaws often too minor to get my attention became issues under stress.
As I recorded the problems, it became very obvious that most of the problems were in
Winston’s inability to perform the basics under stress more than his inability to perform
more advanced tasks. 90% of the problems were control problems where he did not sit,
was not steady or did not handle under ALL conditions under stress. His marking and
memory scores were good but the excitement and stresses in the test caused him to blow
up.

Now the rebuilding process is in process. We work on all basics all over again. Our
training program includes yard drills, single marks, sitting steady at the line, baseball
drills and line drills. It is hard to break those subtle problems but he is coming along. As
soon as he is performing the basics flawlessly, we will start to string them together to
create more difficult situations that he will eventually be called on to perform under all
conditions. But not until he is doing all the individual components well. We will get there
in due time.

For those handlers that are new to the game, you can use Winston and especially me as an
example. We are living examples of why all the magazines and books preach absolute
obedience and control of the basics. When you get to the advanced levels, they are the
foundation that you must build upon. Without them, you will not be able to perform the
advanced tasks.  For anyone else having problems, maybe it would be good to take the engine apart piece by piece and see what may be causing problems. You may be surprised that the problems
are not as difficult as they seem and that you have all the tools you need to fix them.