Thread: Rabbit aversion training ...

Nailed it @Ruff.

I ran a dog once for that old master Eric Douglas on the edge of an orchard in Manutuke, looking for advice. I was hacking my dog back with lots of 'stops' which is a drop to me (I'm old school). He said something which has stuck with me to this day. "For every negative you give a dog you must give a positive. You can't keep dropping him, a negative, without giving him a positive. you'll knock the stuffing out of him" His advice was to turn him, or to send him on a retrieve after the drop. This was my first lesson in drive enhancing, and drive diminishing. It is something I have taken through into fur-proofing. Genetically some of my dogs are very 'furry' - they will hunt and point fur. This historically has meant a dog has a predisposition to hunt by eye, a big no-no in the pointing and setting breeds but not unusual in a driven dog. As Ruff mentions, having a solid foundation in the stop is the main issue. Once the drop is pretty bulletproof in a low distraction area, you then need to up the ante by introducing the 'provocation' as Robyn Gaskin calls it. You then apply that same drop while increasing the distraction. This historically in the UK was the forte of the rabbit pen. I don't think the pen is necessary in NZ, we have tons of the furry little buggers as it is. It is easily achieved hunting in NZ, when your dog points or runs up a hare, drop him, and turn him. The best thing is during hunting is it is quickly forgotten when you get back into birds. Birds become the positive, 'bugs' becomes the negative.

I can say at just over 2 years Baz (my most furry dog) is steady to rabbit. I don't think I will ever get him out of pointing the dirty little ground grubbers though