I have a Gordon setter pup that is just under a year old. She has been worked on quail on and off (roughly 10 times) since she was about 15 weeks. She points on her own for anywhere from 5- 30 seconds before she starts to move and bumps the bird. But If i tell her whoa she gets fidgity and move in on th bird much sooner. Anyone have any suggestions?

You tell her WHOA and she gets fidgity -- Have you actually trained WHOA or are you just saying the word?



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I've worked some on training the word. In the house she knows it outside she does about half the time. Any suggestions on helping me to train her the word more solidly?

Sport, you really need to train the dog to know "whoa". Whoa does not allow for fidgety or slipping, and if the dog breaks whoa you need to enforce it, even of you need to keep the dog ona lead or at hands length.

The good thing is you have a real young dog, who just doesn't understand yet what "whoa" means. Take the time for the dog to learn "whoa" on a lead, where you can reinforce the correct behavior. One thing you can do if the dog gets it in a quiet and controlled setting, but breaks as soon as anything distracts it is to work on smaller distractions in training, and work on the dog breaking, like tossing a ball or a treat when it is at "whoa". When the dog lunges, physically place them back at the starting point, until you release the dog.

Just curious, how have you done with your basic obedience training? Does your dog instantly "sit" or "stay" on command? Personally, I always trained "stay" with my GSP's first when they were pups, and when they would stay locked until released I then moved on to "whoa" in the field training. A gooddog can make the leap from "stay" to "whoa" in a training session or 2.

Yes, she knows sit laydown andstay quite well. In the house she knows whoa also. I can tell her whoa, walk away or thow a treat in front of her and she'll stay right there, until i release her. Also in the field if I though a wing and tell her whoa she'll stay until i release her. I agree, I need to put the time in. I'm just hoping to get some help in ways to teach her.

Most any good "Pointer Trainingbook" will have a section on WHOA.


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WHOA
the most over used and not understood comand there is.
I see folks all the time that turn thier dogs out of the truck and just start screaming WHOA WHOA they have no idea what an idiot they are
Sport2,you really need to do alot more with your hunting budding before you even think about that WHOA command
let him knock and chase some birds, learn how to hunt first. then work on steading.
I never teach WHOA untill every thing else is done.

For woah training, have you used the table or the woah post? A good book on the subject is the Delmar Smith / Bill Tarrant book. The trouble with woah training is the overlaying the command in the field. If your dog already has the desire, start with a check chord or pick the dog up at the first sign of bumping.

You are right on the money with this post. And a bunch of other shouted "comands" that do nothing but further confuse the dog. I was hunting pheasants a couple years ago. A guy got a GSP out of the truck and as they were hunting, the guy kept shouting stuff like, "Get back over here", the poor dog didn't know if it was supposed to go "back" or go "over" or come back ("here") to the handler. Then it was something like, "No, Whoa". I'm sure the dog thought that it wasn't supposed to be Whoaing. The handler was doing stuff likethis all morning long.

I trained Whoa, but thanks to the facts that Casey was trained correctly (no shot birds or retrieves with bumped birds or flyaways etc), and becausehe has always been very solid and staunch, I've never (not even once) said the word Whoa out in the field.



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I agree to what everyone has said here. If you have a place to let her
run for a while will be of great help to you, By letting some of that energy
out of her system she will come around quicker. I like to teach mine a few
tricks just to know that they are listening to me sometimes. Here is one pic after a morning run that shows a trick I had taught him. When the energy is let out they can be ammazingly smart and fun to work with.