Because both Buster and Laddie had difficulty with flaring on yesterday's work, Gaby and I decided to work on that problem today. The idea is that once the dog no longer attempts to flare around a short gun, the other skills we were attempting to work on -- out-of-order indent triples, retired guns -- can then become the focus of the training, without allowing the dog to self-reinforce on flaring, and also without having the dog trying to learn multiple skills at the same time.
Gaby and I tried a number of set-ups to work on flaring today, thinking at first that we could start at a fairly advanced level, such as with a double or with a retired gun. We found that we were not able to sufficiently focus on flaring if we started at that level. We also learned that a BB is not accurate enough to throw the long mark, and we also realized that instead of using a stickman for the short gun, a chair with a white coat would be more appropriate.
Based upon our experiments today, I've written up a complete training plan that I call the De-flaring Drill. Click here to view the entry in my reference blog, "The 2Q Retriever".
In future sessions, Gaby and I plan to work our way thru the steps of the De-flaring Drill. Based upon how quickly both dogs seemed to grasp the concept of not flaring today, once Gaby and I worked out a good way to practice, hopefully the dogs will soon learn the more advanced pictures as well.
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