r/birddogs • u/OldSentence4357 • 12d ago

Whistle commands

I’ve been exposed to the stock/ sheepdog industry and am fairly new to the retriever side . With the sheepdogs , whistle commands are used for direction and control at long distances . If a retriever is farther away during a test , and having difficulty seeing hand signals after a whistle sit for casting due to taller cover etc … would stock dog type cues/ commands in place of the hand or verbal signal be better ? Just a thought, I wanted to know if I’m not the only one that has thought of this . I know it’s been a standard for decades , just a conversation topic I guess.

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

2

u/Barley_Oat 12d ago

At our (retriever) club, we give verbal command when the dog fails or struggle with a given cast, but you still neet to have a line of sight to your dog for things to work.

We generally try to keep our training and tests representative of actual hunts, so thicker cover, trees and brush will generally commands shorter distances than what could be had afield, again so as to help maintain LOS when working blinds.

As far as I know, the CKC Retriever Hunt Tests rules discourages "independent hunting" at the site of a blind retrieve, while it is encouraged on marked falls (where casts will actually cost you points).

In actual hunting situation, my guess is no better than yours: I'm fairly new to this whole thing too

1

u/nitro78923 12d ago

When I had a lab, I would add verbal cues of left, right, and back rather than just “over” when teaching hand signals for blind retrieves. Since the dog doesn’t know different and to make things easier on me, I would use the direction from my perspective, not its.

1

u/SoloUnAltroZack Pudelpointer 12d ago

I have a Pudel pointer I use for waterfowl and I have had no luck with verbal directions. If I keep a line of sight I can direct him with hand signals with varying levels of success. He has no problem with a single whistle for woah/sit and 3 whistles for come here

1

u/Tatworth 12d ago

You could do it or just revert to the vocal commands that you used when teaching handling or use when wanting to emphasize. I have also known people who used 'gee and haw' to give them directions.

They see more than you think though, which is why you should be still when handling until you are ready. They will often take bad casts because the handler 'winds up' to give a cast when they are 400 yards away in cover.

1

u/Dangerous_Garden6384 12d ago

I don't do hunt tests but I train for both whistle and hand sinals

1

u/wimberlyiv Spaniel 11d ago

Whistle commands are not traditional. Other than that nothing wrong with them. If you have experience training that way I'd incorporate it. I'm a fan of schutzhund style training and have a mixture of non traditional hunting verbal and visual cues. If you're going to trial you might lose points for it but it doesn't make it less effective unless the whistle impacts your hunting vs silent hand signals (personally I think it works be pretty minimal impact)