[blackandtan]

It not the whole B&H routine we are trying to teach. Just how to make it better.

I agree that the decoy is motionless in the blind on trial day, but during training there must be ways where people are "particpating"...helping the dog along (during training) so that he can do it on his own with a motionless decoy on trial day. I guess thats the info I am after and what techniques are techniques that can will not get the dog reliant on them during trial day.

There has been posts on here on overviews of drives in a dog. I am familiar with what a lot of drives are, but I guess I am not as famiar with how they all apply and work together in the B&H and how to recognize and capitalize on them. A lot of the times, the drives are explained, but not discussed as they apply to specific situations.

Now if Froli was barking for a piece of cheese, I am guessing that that was food or prey drive. Unless it was a real threatening piece of cheese. Maybe Limburger? If she is now barking at the helper regardless of the sleeve, thats a whole different kind of drive. That transition didn't happen overnight, nor did it happen with the helper/handler/trainers doing "nothing" (during training) like they do in a trial. All that stuff in between is the stuff I am looking for ;)

I also believe a dog should not be barking at the sleeve and should be barking at the helper. Our dog will bark at the helper even if the sleeve is on the floor. But I think one of the decoys we worked with did too much of the whipping, agitating stuff that during training made the dog do this and look incredible during training, but may have caused some problems for the actual trial. Who knows, our dog is not even 3 year old yet and it could be that he is too young, or it could be that we should have introduce a different training technique along side that one. Or maybe we shouldnt make such a big deal about this.

I don't expect to learn it all in a a few posts on this board, but I thought it would be interesting to get some insights and/or varied opinions. If anything, just to learn about drives in specific aspects of the SchH routines.