whistle

Bayli · Post by **Bayli** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 8:53 pm

how do you train a dog to come to a whistle ?

and is it possible to train them to ... say sit or stay with a different whistle ?, if so how ?

QCBirddogs · Post by **QCBirddogs** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 8:58 pm

Bay.

Traing it the same as you would give a command. When you use the lead to teach come, sit whoa, etc....blow the whistle......I.E. ONe long blast for whoa, short TOOTS for come etc.

It's easy to do....jsut kepp up the reps.

Phil
REO

Post by **Greg Jennings** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 9:00 pm

Bayli wrote:how do you train a dog to come to a whistle ?

and is it possible to train them to ... say sit or stay with a different whistle ?, if so how ?

The same way you'd teach him to come to you on any other command.

There are various ways to do it depending on what you've used as a foundation for the dog.

Frankly, I've never had to teach my two pointing dogs to recall. It's just something that they grew up doing.

Now, I *did* have to teach them that it wasn't optional when they developed a little case of "selective hearing" later.

Best regards,

dhondtm · Post by **dhondtm** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 11:04 pm

Bayli wrote:how do you train a dog to come to a whistle ?

and is it possible to train them to ... say sit or stay with a different whistle ?, if so how ?

If you get your dog to say sit or stay, I bet I will be seeing you on the Letterman show.

ccavacini · Post by **ccavacini** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 2:21 pm

It's really not that hard--

After your dog knows the command...say the command, then blow the whistle...."Here!" whistle.

My dog comes all the way back to me on one whistle....and on two whistles, she just comes back toward me (when she gets too far out)

birddog · Post by **birddog** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 8:01 am

If your dog comes to "here" or "come" why do you need the whistle? To me a whistle is like an umbilcal cord. Toot and the dog comes in, don't toot and the dog reaches out until he hear's the toot. In heavy cover, try staying silent and you will find the dog wants to know where you are and will come looking for you. If you start this right from the get go you will find you can hunt your dog with very little handling. Really makes for a quiet and peacful time in the woods.

Janet.

Mtnspaniel · Post by **Mtnspaniel** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 3:18 pm

birddog wrote:If your dog comes to "here" or "come" why do you need the whistle?
Janet.

I prefer to communicate with my dog via whistle because it is less disturbing to game, some days I never say a word while hunting alone with my dogs. A well trained dog will, or should need very little communtication anyway, reguardless if it is voice or whistle. I also use a 212 spaniel whistle, not very loud but it works well and my dogs will respond even when I blow it very quietly. IMO most guys use to loud of a whistle. Roy Gonias and Acme thunderers may be fine for very long range dog work but most of us don't need that much volumne.

mountaindogs · Post by **mountaindogs** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 1:27 pm

birddog wrote:If your dog comes to "here" or "come" why do you need the whistle? To me a whistle is like an umbilcal cord. Toot and the dog comes in, don't toot and the dog reaches out until he hear's the toot. In heavy cover, try staying silent and you will find the dog wants to know where you are and will come looking for you. If you start this right from the get go you will find you can hunt your dog with very little handling. Really makes for a quiet and peacful time in the woods.

Janet.

I like the whistle because it doesn't show emotion. Also I am not a loud spoken person and I don't like yelling. I agree the dogs should check in and stay with you while you hunt, but you never know when you'll need the dog to come all the way back to you. I expect my dogs to look for me, but if I need them back to me NOW I also expect them to listen to the whistle. Called my lab off a skunk this way, for example...

Laurie

birddog · Post by **birddog** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 2:47 pm

I agree the dogs should check in and stay with you while you hunt, but you never know when you'll need the dog to come all the way back to you. I expect my dogs to look for me, but if I need them back to me NOW I also expect them to listen to the whistle. Called my lab off a skunk this way, for example...

Laurie[/quote]

If one chooses to use a whistle, so be it. In the past I have used them but found the voice is heard a lot farther then the whistle in some situtations. Even the voice cannot be heard down wind at times. Now add a bell or beeper collar, and those sounds make it almost impossible for the dog to hear the whistle. The voice command is much more powerful over the beep of the collar or clank of the bell. I have done a demonstration with this subject. I had someone walk down wind with a bell clanking, wind blowing and told them to stop when they heard the whistle. I then repeated with the voice command. The whistle was not heard at the greater distance. One question I would like to ask. If you got your dog off the skunk with the whistle why would you believe you could not get the same results with the come command?

mountaindogs · Post by **mountaindogs** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 4:26 pm

Probably I could have. I don't always have a whistle and they should come to the voice command also. But I am soft spoken as I said and would have had to yell hard. Maybe she could hear this better but it's less pleasent for me to spend the day yelling at my dogs.

It is opinion I know, and I am never absolute about my training methods. If a dog, or situation calls for something new or I just plain old change my mind about what I like, then fine. So far I like the whistle. I don't use a super loud one, and I don't whistle all day, just a few times if needed.
And true, the more experienced dogs know what I expect and I can go days without having to use the whistle once, but should I need to grab their attention, I like to do it without yelling. It wouldn't worry me to be without one. But I like having it.
JMO

Post by **ezzy333** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 4:34 pm

I can't see the point of argueing whistle or voice since it is personnal preference. Personnally I think birds do not respond to the whistle like they do a voice so I like to use the whistle. Also I'm not convinced the dogs don't hear the whistle much further. You can't test the distance with a person since dogs hear diferent pitches than we do. But either way do what works for you and admit one isn't much different than the other. Just which ever you think is best is the way to do it.

Ezzy

birddog · Post by **birddog** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 6:34 pm

ezzy333 wrote:I can't see the point of argueing whistle or voice since it is personnal preference. Personnally I think birds do not respond to the whistle like they do a voice so I like to use the whistle. Also I'm not convinced the dogs don't hear the whistle much further. You can't test the distance with a person since dogs hear diferent pitches than we do. But either way do what works for you and admit one isn't much different than the other. Just which ever you think is best is the way to do it.

Ezzy

If the whistle carries farther then voice, then why do most horseback handlers yodel to get their dogs to get them to come around rather then use a whistle? I don't see this as an argument, just a discussion with different opinions.

Post by **ezzy333** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 7:44 pm

I yodel to let the dog know where I am and a whistle is used as a command. I try to think that the dog is as concerned where I am as I am concerned where it is. If it can here me then it doesn't have to look for me but can pay strick attention to finding birds in front of me.

Janet, I'm sorry. Argue was a poor choice of words. I didn't mean it was a knock down drag out but just a friendly arguement or discussion.

Ezzy

mountaindogs · Post by **mountaindogs** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 9:25 pm

ezzy333 wrote:
Janet, I'm sorry. Argue was a poor choice of words. I didn't mean it was a knock down drag out but just a friendly arguement or discussion.

Ezzy

"Discussion" definately! Just sharing opinions.
Janet, do you train the "silent hunting" method? What's the basic philosophy behind it? How do you train differently? (Yes

I should read the book... planning to..)

Laurie

mountaindogs · Post by **mountaindogs** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 9:31 pm

ezzy333 wrote:
Janet, I'm sorry. Argue was a poor choice of words. I didn't mean it was a knock down drag out but just a friendly arguement or discussion.

Ezzy

"Discussion" definately! Just sharing opinions.
Janet, you train the "silent hunting" method. What's the basic philosophy behind it? How do you train differently? (Yes

I should read the book... planning to..)

Laurie

birddog · Post by **birddog** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 4:28 am

Laurie, First and foremost I am a hunter. When I am hunting I do not like to have to constantly handle my dog. I feel the dog should be trained to do there job, which is to find birds. I also feel if trained properly the dog should accomplish this with very little handling. I also feel it should not be necessary to hack or whistle a dog to bring them around. Nothing is more annoying to me then to have a fellow hunter constantly tooting a whistle or hollering commands to their dog. I also feel the whistle is nothing more then an umbilical cord to a dog. Blow the whistle they return. Don't blow the whisrle they will keep reaching out..I have found if you train the dog to find you, they will come around without any command when you are out of their sight for a period of time, simply because by being silent and not blowing a whistle or calling to let them know where you are, and because they have been trained at an early age to look for you, will on there own hunt you down. Now this method of course is for heavy cover hunting when you can't see the dog or the dog can't see you. If my hunting was in wide open cover where you can see the dog, and dogs have a tendency to reach out, I too would use a whistle to bring them around. However, that is not the case for me. Our cover is thick and nasty. Hard enough to catch your breath sometimes let alone having enough air to blow or shout commands.

The system works and should anyone out there care to enjoy one of my tranquil hunts, just ask.

mountaindogs · Post by **mountaindogs** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 9:18 am

birddog wrote:I also feel it should not be necessary to hack or whistle a dog to bring them around. Nothing is more annoying to me then to have a fellow hunter constantly tooting a whistle or hollering commands to their dog....
....I have found if you train the dog to find you, they will come around without any command when you are out of their sight for a period of time, simply because by being silent and not blowing a whistle or calling to let them know where you are, and because they have been trained at an early age to look for you, will on there own hunt you down.

With the above I totally agree. I don't whistle for whoa or call my dogs back every time I want to check in. They do that. They should look for me and when running young dogs I'll change direction when they get out of site and make them come after me when they realize I'm not with them. They don't keep going until they hear the whistle, they stick with me and when I change direction they look back and change theirs too. I don't call them for that.
But when you do need them to quit something they are into (skunk, or snake, or whatever) how do you call them off? Just call them with voice? That seems to me like the only real difference of opinion I see. Whistle or voice for a come back command. Is that really much different than using "come" instead of "here." Just a different way to communicate a desire for the dog to come back to you. IMHO. But I respect that you don't like it.

And I like the whistle for the reasons that you mentioned regarding not wearing yourself out in the process. I too work in fairly heavy cover in timber cut over areas and it's hard work just walking. Yelling seems like it takes more air than blowing three quick whistle toots. But they know the voice too, and the voice is always with me. The whistle sometimes I forget.

So I wouldn't want you to think that they don't know what to do without it.

I was just curious about the training techniques that you used that might be different. I don't really subscribe to the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" philosophy. I'd rather keep an open mind because if there's a better way, why struggle with the worse one? So I like to hear opinions and other methods. I'll have to watch the training tape and learn more.
Thanks for discussing it with me. Sounds to me like we agree more than we disagree

Laurie

(I have no idea why my other post posted twice... must have screwed up...)

Casper · Post by **Casper** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 7:29 pm

birddog wrote:If my hunting was in wide open cover where you can see the dog, and dogs have a tendency to reach out, I too would use a whistle to bring them around. However, that is not the case for me. Our cover is thick and nasty. Hard enough to catch your breath sometimes let alone having enough air to blow or shout commands.

Out here in the west many like to use the whistle for the exact reason you mention above. Here we can get winds equal to the northern praries where if you dont have one your dog will have a hard time hearing you. Especialy when you are coughing and weezing from just climbing 2000 feet when you started at 5000 feet

Addict · Post by **Addict** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 7:42 pm

I have a question for those of you who use whistles. Do you use seperate toned whistles for each individual dog?

Addict

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