Hi all, thanks for all your welcomes, I should warn you that I'm not always online during the summer, and then tend to `speed read' posts since I was last on. So please don't be offended if I miss a question by not answering it, it will probably be that I genuinely didn't see it.
Before I start giving out advise, I must stress that without seeing your dogs first hand there is a limit to the advise I can give online, because of the risk of misunderstanding of all the circumstances which will effect your individual dogs. The onus is ultimately down to you as the dogs owners whether you first understand exactly what I mean, and whether or not you want to take the advise given.
There are umpteen methods of training a dog, and it seems every year a new trend, or rather a new name or title is given out and about for what I would have been doing for years but not called it anything specific. There are some methods that raises a smile from me and others that appal me, but they do work! ( I personally would like to think that I could get the same results using a different method!) But you should all remember that in training a dog you should never limit your knowledge and dismiss training methods out of hand, as they all give you an insight into how the dogs mind works differently to your own. Putting your principles, reasoning and morality into the dogs mind and therefore in its understanding or your perception of its understanding is inherently dangerous and misleading during training. Which ever method you use will be personal to you, you will not gain a partnership with your dog if you are unhappy ( and therefore inconsistent) with a particular training method, but this must be balanced with reality when something clearly is not working.
All my training ( and writing) is geared towards a working gundog, but those who are not interested in attaining this level should still pay heed, as with a Munster like it or not the dog WILL be working when off lead to some degree, the difference between a `working' munster and a pet munster is basically a level of control and whether the dog is working for you or itself!
Some of you already realise that these dogs pick up things quickly, and think they are `smart', they are but not in the way you think. They are smart in communicating, not directly in learning a task/command. The first people realise this is usually some months down the line when Fido bogs off after something that has caught his attention, and doesn't respond to any of the commands flowing from its handler in ever increasing volume! Ring a bell does it?
The dog has only actually learnt an action to a signal, it has not learnt that the signal is a command to be obeyed. Similarly people often think that when a dog disobeys a signal/command but then obeys one given in a harsher tone it is learning the difference between the signal and a command, its not! its only actually teaching the dog to ignore the first signal!
I actually only teach two `commands' The first is the SIT ( which in later training flows into the STOP). Remember if a dog is sat, unless its scratching its arse, it has to be stationary, hence the sit/stop effectively being one command. The second command is the RECALL, where the dog must return to me without hesitation. If you have these two commands, clearly understood by the dog, you have control, if not should you really be letting your dog off the lead?
That might sound a bit harsh but believe me when you see your four month old puppy heading for home with a prize myxy rabbit he just caught, and between him and home is a busy main road which he has no comprehension of, and only a last ditch launch through the air after an exhausting wide arc run to cut him off at a gap in the last hedge, the shock of which was enough to make him drop the rabbit and stop! You may just begin to realise that running free, which munsters do relish, is a privilege not a right! and as such has to be earned through training and obedience.
This all may sound like I am a disciplinarian and do not let my dogs have fun, far from it, I would argue that my dogs have far to much fun ( often at my expense) and they would be much better workers if I was more strict with them. The difference is I'm consistent in my handling, there is no grey area when a command is given, especially from the dogs perspective, they understand things only in black and white ( very appropriate for a munster!). I don't constantly control my dogs actions but I do set their boundaries, and when they push for more ( as they do) I reduce them to make them appreciate what they had and this keeps them honest and respectful!
I haven't answered the specific questions put for me yet, I'll do that later this week...I hope, as I thought it better to set out the basic principles on which I operate.
Peter