218. Are You Boring Your Dog?

<p><span style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Twenty tidy retrieves on the same patch of field, and on the twenty-first your dog picks the dummy up, gives it a shake and takes the scenic route home. Before you decide they've gone backwards, ask yourself a slightly uncomfortable question. Are you boring them? LWDG Group Expert Claire Denyer and LWDG Founder Jo Perrott get into the difference between reps that proof a behaviour and reps you keep doing because they feel safe. Claire shares how her older dog Rose started treating their big, varied training fields like a second back garden, and what happened when Rose worked somewhere new an hour down the road. You'll hear how to vary the reward for a stop whistle so your dog can't guess what's coming, how to stop a dog deciding three retrieves is their limit, and how to change things by ten or twenty percent without ripping up your routine. Claire trains gundogs and their handlers for a living and sees this pattern in her clients all the time. If training feels like Groundhog Day for either of you, listen before your next session.</span></p><p></p><p><strong><em><u>Thanks for being here. </u></em></strong></p><p><br></p><p>If this episode gave you something, a laugh, a lightbulb, or just the feeling that someone gets it, that's exactly why we make it.</p><p>📚 <strong>Not sure where to start with your gundog training?</strong> Grab the <a href="https://ladiesworkingdoggroup.com/lwdg-level-finder/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>LWDG Gundog Progress Gap Map</strong></a><strong>. Work out where</strong> you exactly where you are and what to work on next, no more guessing needed.</p>