New Training Article posted on Training Retriever Puppies
You've heard the expression an emotional roller coaster right? I was on one. Ten or fifteen years ago I was walking in from flying a new hawk free for the first time and celebrating that accomplishment when I got a huge revelation about my dog training and it wasn't a good one.
At the time I was working a handful of young dogs in "basics" in the yard. I had a couple of young stars in the group with good "work ethic" and a good "training attitude," but most of the young dogs I was training really didn't like the yard work.
Well, I like to train dogs that are enjoying themselves so I complained to myself daily about the group I was working - wishing I had better dogs to work with.
The day of the insight I had been training this new hawk on leashes and long lines for about two weeks. My mind said it was too early to fly her free but my heart wanted to try.
I took her outside to a line of trees removed the leash from her jesses and released her. She fluffed up, shook and then flew to a nearby tree.
I paused then whistled to call her and showed her my gloved fist. Immediately, she left the tree and flew to my fist. I rewarded her and then repeated this a few times. Every time I called her she left the tree and flew to my fist.
This was one of the first hawks I trained so everything about training her was new. I was marveling over how neat it was that this wild animal would work with me and I was amazed that only two weeks from the wild the hawk would come when I called her.
My excitement turned a bit sour however when a question popped in my mind. How could I do this with a hawk that by nature has no attachment to humans, no interest in "working" with a human and absolutely no training desire? Especially when I couldn't get this much as soon from the young Labradors I was training because they "didn't like to train"?
Was it possible that the fault was mine? If so what was I doing differently with the hawk that I could apply to dog training?
For the complete article on Training Attitude in Retriever Puppies
