Gundogs/training In Drive

[Luke GSP]

Just wondering, in regard to drive training, (using a toy to initiate drive for example) with the aim of gaining the subconscious imprinting etc, is it an applicable method for gundog training? The reason I ask is that I was thinking about it the other day and it occurred to me that if you are using prey drive, and you are encouraging the dog to "hunt" surely the act of hunting (scent, sight etc) is increasing the level of drive, then the flush and hopeful retrieve is the drive satisfaction? So would drive training(in its stand alone training method) work in this scenario? or is the scenario in itself training in drive?

Hope that makes sense. :)

[Nekhbet]

WOrks perfectly, a lot of people use live birds such as pigeons in training them as well which involves a high chase component, dog returns to handler for 'release' of another bird.

[Luke GSP]

My one reservation with training in drive using a tug toy for instance (assuming toys and prey drive were your dogs thing) is there a chance that you might diminish their drive when hunting/quartering? Is there a risk of you diminishing the potential reward of the hunting activity due to the height of the toys reward level?

[Nekhbet]

no because you still put parameters on the behavior to get the reward. I train a couple of dogs tracking in drive and they wont stop until they fall over to get the reward. It's all wrapped up together, the process and the reward :)

[Luke GSP]

Thanks Nekhbet, have you ever encountered or do you believe that there might be any issues where the drive training with a tug might create a hard mouth situation?

[Nekhbet]

Oh I think there might be considering the dog is encouraged to grip the drive toy in order to get satisfaction through interaction. Unless you treat it as a 'retrieve' where the bird itself is not a 'play' item it's something to retrieve and return to get prey satisfaction through the tug toy. Might be worth talking more to some seasoned bird hunters to help you out.

[corvus]

Ask The Spotted Devil. I seem to remember she was being quite careful about tug in a retrieving context. A dog park friend does competition retrieving with his two Tollers and doesn't ever seem to reward with anything but more retrieves. He started a new pup this year and it's been fun to watch her progress. He builds it up, setting her up to succeed each time and slowly increasing difficulty.

[BlackJaq]

I would be careful not to spoil the handover, where the dog might try to initiate a tugging session with the retrieve. If you keep them clearly separated at all times I think it should work.

I only use treats as rewards at the moment because once the dog starts to enjoy the work the work becomes the reward, or so I have found. I only used the treats during basic retrieve training (holding the dummy, carrying it, clearing obstacles with the dummy, basic boring stuff like that).

In saying that though, I have not actually started the dog on retrieving actual shot game due to an injury-induced break from training, so somebody who has actually got to that point should be able to help you more (i.e. The Spotted Devil as somebody else has said)

ETA: I have found that waiting to be sent in and such will greatly increase the dog's enthusiasm and drive. My dog will pretty much do a rearing start in an effort to get away quicker now lol

Edited June 25, 2013 by BlackJaq

[Luke GSP]

Thanks for all the advice,

To be honest, it wasn't something that I was considering using, (my cocker would smash through a concrete wall to get to a bit of chicken so I know what motivates him)I just wondered why you rarely hear people in the gundog world talking about training "in drive" in fact quite often when you try and discuss it with them, a lot of them miss the point, saying "ÿou can't train in drive, your dog either has drive or it doesn't!"

In regard to the work being the reward, I totally agree, however when you are trying to nail the basics, I think sometimes a little bit of motivation can help stop the dogs attention wandering ;-) saying that though, I suppose that is my fault as I should have stopped the game before it got to that point

[corvus]

It's rarely spoken about in the herding world, either, AFAIK. Often I think "training in drive" refers more to arousal than anything else. There's a lot of talk about chemical rewards and whatnot, but all rewards are chemical at the heart of it. Arousal is intrinsically entwined with focus and performance. In security and shutzhund where you hear most about training in drive, the behaviours being trained are quite different to herding and retrieving. It's fast and punchy and intense and doesn't really require much cognitive processing on the dog's part. Totally different arousal requirements for good performance than in something more prolonged and needing more cognitive processing.

[Kavik]

I agree with corvus, Training in Drive to me refers to a specific way of training using drive, and is often associated with certain disciplines, I think of Schutzhund and obedience when thinking of TID.

[Wobbly]

Shaping the dogs natural instincts (eg hunting) vs pattern training behaviours that aren't instinctive (eg heeling).

Some good insights here, the link won't take you directly to the info, click the "civilian" button at the top. About 50 pages of reading for civilians, definitely worth the time. The shaping of natural instincts is nicely covered IMO.

http://www.k9copsonly.com/

[Luke GSP]

I agree with corvus, Training in Drive to me refers to a specific way of training using drive, and is often associated with certain disciplines, I think of Schutzhund and obedience when thinking of TID.

The same disciplines that I would associate it to as well, I sometimes wonder if "drive training" works due to the fact that it drills in to a very natural thing for a dog to do, see something moving and try to catch it, (artificail senario) hence why it (the training) is such a motivator? Where as in the gundog world, the dogs activities are literally doing it for real, hence you shape the behaviour in to the way you want it approached rather than trying to "teach" the action. It seems to me that the work of the gundog is in reality very much in line with TID, The gundog being taken to the game grounds (drive initiation), being allowed to quarter and hunt flush (drive build) retrieve drive satisfaction (the dog got its mark)

[Luke GSP]

Shaping the dogs natural instincts (eg hunting) vs pattern training behaviours that aren't instinctive (eg heeling).

Some good insights here, the link won't take you directly to the info, click the "civilian" button at the top. About 50 pages of reading for civilians, definitely worth the time. The shaping of natural instincts is nicely covered IMO.

http://www.k9copsonly.com/

Thanks Wobbly, very interesting :)

[Wobbly]

Everything we call "drive" is reasonably well researched and technically speaking falls within the category of dopamine driven "Seeking" behaviours. "Drive" is an easier term to use though, since it's common parlance now, so everyone more or less has a similar understanding. Worth reading about the neurological basis if you find the relationships between hard evidence based science and psychology interesting.

A fair layman's treatment here: http://www.emotions-r-us.com/

More technical and complete treatments of the topic can be found by googling "Jaan Panskepp", one of the foremost researchers in the field as it relates to both humans and animals.

[The Spotted Devil]

Shaping the dogs natural instincts (eg hunting) vs pattern training behaviours that aren't instinctive (eg heeling).

Some good insights here, the link won't take you directly to the info, click the "civilian" button at the top. About 50 pages of reading for civilians, definitely worth the time. The shaping of natural instincts is nicely covered IMO.

http://www.k9copsonly.com/

Hmmmm....based on his writings of "The Retrieve" I'm not wholly impressed. Not that I practice forced retrieves but, when it is used in gundogs, it is generally for dogs with stinking high prey drive in the first place. In most cases it's nothing to do with making a dog retrieve that doesn't want to.

The whole point of a gundog is that it doesn't want to rip and shred what it catches....that's a good thing right? I know my Springer gets a huge amount of satisfaction from simply hunting and quartering and using her nose and they are certainly used for that purpose in scent detection. And to retrieve game is just MAGIC for her! Just to carry it for a while is a huge reward. She actually doesn't enjoy tugging that much to be honest although it's something I do work on just for the hell of it.

[corvus]

Everything we call "drive" is reasonably well researched and technically speaking falls within the category of dopamine driven "Seeking" behaviours.

Whoa! Slow down. Affective neuroscience is still pretty new. Panksepp has the neural side of things reasonably solid after basically his entire life working on it, but how it translates to behaviour is trickier. The brain is so beautifully complex and flexible that we can't make things that do what it does naturally. I figure it's fair to say SEEKING is where it's all at for most training, but I wouldn't go so far as to say all drives fit neatly into it. There's some crossover and plenty of opportunity to be surprised yet. I wouldn't say they were well researched, either. You are finding some great resources. I'm gonna have to start sending you papers at this rate.

Drive theory was mostly dumped because it failed to explain learning as well as operant conditioning does, basically. So in that sense I guess because of reliability issues, but only in that it wasn't The Answer. Obviously OC isn't, either, it just explains more than drive theory did. I'm not really sure why it fell so deeply out of favour, but Panksepp might provide the bridge to get these ideas back into the spotlight. I know a few academics in my field that are turning over ideas how to incorporate Panksepp's seven emotional systems into some kind of behavioural model. Then there will be a whole lot of testing to do.

[The Spotted Devil]

I struggle to describe what I see with gundogs sometimes....the complexity of the behaviour is way beyond any simple term like "drive". In training I try to keep it simple. Reward what I like. Ignore what I don't. And let the dog do the rest. So often I feel like a privileged observer when Em's on fire in the field. So much she has learnt without me teaching her. A completely different sensation to running agility or doing anything else.

Edited June 27, 2013 by The Spotted Devil

[dragonwoman]

I struggle to describe what I see with gundogs sometimes....the complexity of the behaviour is way beyond any simple term like "drive". In training I try to keep it simple. Reward what I like. Ignore what I don't. And let the dog do the rest. So often I feel like a privileged observer when Em's on fire in the field. So much she has learnt without me teaching her. A completely different sensation to running agility or doing anything else.

Herding and Tracking can be much the same, great feeling

[Wobbly]

Everything we call "drive" is reasonably well researched and technically speaking falls within the category of dopamine driven "Seeking" behaviours.

Whoa! Slow down. Affective neuroscience is still pretty new. Panksepp has the neural side of things reasonably solid after basically his entire life working on it, but how it translates to behaviour is trickier. The brain is so beautifully complex and flexible that we can't make things that do what it does naturally. I figure it's fair to say SEEKING is where it's all at for most training, but I wouldn't go so far as to say all drives fit neatly into it. There's some crossover and plenty of opportunity to be surprised yet. I wouldn't say they were well researched, either. You are finding some great resources. I'm gonna have to start sending you papers at this rate.

Drive theory was mostly dumped because it failed to explain learning as well as operant conditioning does, basically. So in that sense I guess because of reliability issues, but only in that it wasn't The Answer. Obviously OC isn't, either, it just explains more than drive theory did. I'm not really sure why it fell so deeply out of favour, but Panksepp might provide the bridge to get these ideas back into the spotlight. I know a few academics in my field that are turning over ideas how to incorporate Panksepp's seven emotional systems into some kind of behavioural model. Then there will be a whole lot of testing to do.

Ahh thanks Corvus! "D I am still very shaky on this, and appreciate all corrections :D I have had contact with some of Le Doux's research, (pursuant to reading Goleman's "Emotional Intelligence" many years ago) and found Le Doux's research into the neurobiology of fear fascinating, although I never got to read any of it firsthand since it was hard to track down at the time, the information superhighway then is not what it is now. Panskepp is very new to me, so my comprehension is still very limited. I'd love research papers though. "D