Question: I have a five-year-old female Brittany that ranges too far out for my liking. I have taught her to heel, stay, whoa, sit, and come, all of which she does quite well, but I can't get her to hunt closer. When she is ranging too far, I make her come in and heal for a bit, but as soon as I release her, she goes right back out to a distance that I'm not comfortable with. Should I just give up and buy another dog or what?

John C., Saginaw.

Answer: If this is the only problem you're having with the dog, I wouldn't give up or get rid of her. By calling the dog back in to heel, you haven't conveyed your desire for her to hunt closer. What if when you were in school and every time you misspelled a word, your teacher made you stand in the corner but didn't tell you why you had to stand in the corner. You might have never figured out what she was trying to accomplish.

This problem, like most, is easier to fix earlier on in the dog's life. After five years, most problems are now behavior patterns which take much longer to solve. The command I use is ‘stay close' and it means just that. Ideally, I teach this command when the dog is young and before I have taught the dog to heel. I usually teach this command during the same time that I'm teaching the ‘whoa' command, or as with retrievers, when I'm teaching them to sit on a whistle command.

When a dog is young and full of life, walking on a lead can be a tug-of-war exercise. Young dogs may strain at the leash, pulling to get ahead. Now, the traditional methods say to put a choke or pinch collar on the dog and snap her back when she pulls while saying ‘heel.' A sharp pull will discourage her from pulling and after a few trips out, she will stop pulling on the lead. I have several problems with teaching the heel command too early in a pup's life. A pointing dog that is heel-broke before it is whoa-broke and is steadied on birds will heel when the check cord is put on. A dog that is heeling next to you isn't searching for birds.

While a young dog is in the pulling stage, I firmly but not violently pull on the lead while saying ‘stay close.' I use a regular safety collar, not a pinch or choker, which I would use for the whoa or for heel work. A few good, hard tugs with a choke or pinch collar stops most dogs from pulling altogether. This command takes weeks to set into place and needs to be transferred to off-lead in open fields, same as the ‘whoa' command. It is more of a nagging command and not an abrupt, about-face as with ‘whoa' or ‘heel.' You also need to vary the length of the cord that the dog is allowed to walk with. A few minutes at two feet, a few minutes at ten feet, then maybe a few minutes at six feet, all the while firmly pulling back when the dog tries to pull forward. Some dogs need to be pulled quite hard to get their attention but do not go to a pinch or choke collar. When transferring this to off-lead, you need to use some leg slapping and non-verbal communication.

With an older, heel-broke dog, you may not have much luck with this since the dog is no longer pulling at the lead. In this case, I use the stop to the whistle command that is popular with retriever trainers. Years ago, I was guiding some older fellows on a planted bird hunt. They wanted to hunt pheasants and were planning to use a flusher. I did my best to talk them out of releasing all of the pheasants for fear that the old timers wouldn't be able to keep up with the flushing dog. Hunting with flushers had always been a foot race for me with the dog flushing a fair amount of birds out of gun range.

This group of gray beards never moved faster than a slow walk. As the dog got birdy on my first set, I tried to hurry the group up and into position. The owner of the dog gave a long blast on his whistle and the dog sat obediently. The handler then turned to me and said “son, we've been hunting pheasant for more years than you have been alive. Will you please be quiet and stay back behind us?” “Yes, sir,” I replied, and I proceeded to watch these three old timers get every one of their birds while never once breaking stride. Every time the dog looked as if it had bird scent and was out of shooting range, the handler would hit his whistle and put the dog on sit until they could get into range so that he could then release the dog to hunt on.

Charlie Linblade

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