Steadiness: what it means for our gundogs and how to train it
Within the sport of gundog training, you will often hear people discussing ’steadiness’.
Teaching steadiness is something you will inevitably cover whether you want to participate in fun training classes with your pet gundog, are working towards non-competitive assessments, or are looking to work your dog on a shoot.
But what exactly is steadiness?
If you ask a cross-section of gundog handlers, you will likely get answers like these:
· Doesn’t run in
· Doesn’t hunt on
· Doesn’t chase birds/rabbits/deer
· Walks steadily to heel (doesn’t fidget, surge forward, sniff ground)
· Doesn’t make noise
· Doesn’t swap dummies/birds
· Stops on the whistle/stops to flush
· Doesn’t run off or mess about between exercises
Quite a lot of these descriptions begin with the word ‘doesn’t’ and focus on things our dogs shouldn’t be doing.
In the pursuit of the desirable trait of steadiness, this gives very little information about what we want our dogs to be doing instead and often leads handlers to focus, not on teaching their dog self-control, but on managing and preventing them from being unsteady.
Before we rush off to look at how to go about the process of training and developing a steady gundog, it is important to identify what steadiness is and what it is not.
We’ll do exactly that in this blog before looking at why management is still crucial but not enough in the long term, how to get started with your steadiness training, and what to do if you’re ready to progress to working around live game.
What is steadiness in gundog training?
If you take time to consider this, you will see that steadiness is not a ‘behaviour’, ‘task’, or even a ‘skill’. It is a state of mind, an attitude, an emotional response.
Let us take a step back and look at this from a dog-learning perspective.
If you have an understanding of learning theory, you will know that the first stage of learning is ‘acquisition’, where new behaviours are taught (via shaping, luring, capturing, etc). These are then practised to their best quality and fluency and then put ‘on cue’.
The next step in learning is to ‘isolate the cue’. Many call this stage generalisation or proofing, and it is where the newly learned behaviour is taken ‘on the road’ to be taught and practised in a large variety of different environments, orientations, and with distractions.
Working through this process takes a lot of time to ensure that the ‘behaviour’ is fluent and of top quality in the majority of scenarios.
The correct behavioural term for the end result of this process is that the cue then comes under ‘stimulus control’, meaning the behaviour only happens when it is cued. It is also robust and resilient to distraction.
This is the crux of what “steadiness” is.
Our preferred phrase for describing steadiness, although long, encapsulates this concept:
“Steadiness is: when the dog remains focused on and completes the task regardless of any change, distraction or anomaly in the environment”.
The number one mistake gundog handlers make when training steadiness
There is another perspective to consider that is far more important than just the steadiness training and practice drills.
The dog's personality and emotional state should be the priority in all aspects of training. This is even more relevant when we are looking at steadiness. And yet, this aspect is so often overlooked.
The biggest mistake gundog handlers make when training steadiness is trying to fix the behaviour without paying any attention to the emotion behind it.
Let’s say your dog runs in on dummies or starts making noise, when the sound of shot and other dogs are present. You may have taught a cue, gone through the ‘isolate the cue’ process, but your dog is still ‘unsteady’ in this circumstance.
At this point in the training, some handlers might try to physically manage the situation and stop the dog from running in or from making noises. Some of these strategies work temporarily, but in our experience, the unsteadiness and noise always return.
Noise, in particular, is a symptom of how the dog is feeling. Whether that is frustrated, conflicted, excited, anxious, etc. These are all emotions, and dogs, unlike humans, are not very good at hiding their emotions in public.
When it comes to running in too, you need to consider the temperament and personality of the dog.
Dogs that are highly competitive with other dogs present might be perfectly able to manage themselves when training alone, but run in when they are in company.
In these scenarios, you need to try and change the dog’s core emotions. There is little point in telling them to just stop doing what they’re doing or physically managing them over and over and over again.
What about arousal and steadiness?
Arousal is an emotion we often talk about.
We actually need to teach our gundogs to work in a state of arousal because that arousal is what keeps them motivated and energised.
Too much arousal, however, pushes them over the edge and into a state of mind where they are no longer able to think cognitively. We call this being ‘over-threshold’.
Arousal does not just impact steadiness. You might have noticed that your over excited dog is suddenly unable to sit, recall or perform other behaviours which they would normally do so reliably when not ‘over-threshold’.
When it comes to steadiness training, you need to factor this emotion into your training separately.
With your underpinning knowledge, empathy and understanding of your own dog, you need to work through your own personalised programme of ‘isolate the cue’ training to cover:
· Environment, distractions, distances, orientations, cue discrimination
· Temperament and personality of your dog
· Arousal levels, working through cues in low arousal increasing levels until you finally get that behaviour under ‘stimulus control’ and that equals steadiness.
Why managing steadiness is vital but not a long-term solution
You might have been told that you need to manage your gundog and prevent them from rewarding themselves for unwanted behaviours. This is still true and is important for steadiness training.
Indeed, it would be a very chaotic and unproductive group class if there were dogs running in on each other’s retrieves. And everyone would go home with a headache if dogs spent the hour whining and barking at the top of their lungs.
If you have a dog that runs in when it is in a group class scenario, you will want to keep it on the lead while other dogs are retrieving. If you have a dog that makes noise because it struggles to watch others retrieve or wait, you might want to walk away from the group when it’s not their turn.
These strategies will manage the situation, yes, but they will not deal with the emotion and will not help your dog to change their behaviour in the long term.
Here is a human example if you’re struggling to see the link between behaviour and emotion.
Imagine you are feeling very anxious about an upcoming assignment, a meeting, or a hospital appointment, and have started frantically biting your nails as a consequence.
We could tell you to stop and physically prevent you from doing this behaviour by making you sit on your hands or putting gloves on you.
This would stop the nail biting, temporarily. But it would not stop you from feeling anxious. And it is highly likely that you would go back to biting your nails as soon as we left and you were physically able to do so.
To break the anxiety-induced ‘need’ to bite your nails (your behaviour), you’d need to learn how to manage yourself (your emotions) in relation to the assignment, or meeting, or hospital appointment.
It is the same with your gundog’s steadiness.
We need to focus on the emotion behind the dog’s ‘behaviour’ rather than the behaviour itself. There is no “one size fits all” answer to this but in the right hands, with the right trainer helping you, you can develop a strategy to help your dog get to the stage where they can manage themselves using what we know about learning and behaviour and how reinforcement works.
How to work out if your gundog understands steadiness as an emotion or if they are reliant on you to manage them
Sometimes, it is very obvious to a handler whether their gundog is able to manage their own impulses or if it is all down to training set-up, strategies, and restraints.
Other times, you might think that your dog understands the concept of self-control when, in fact, their steadiness is reliant on your cues, body language or pressure.
Remember, as we noted in the nail-biting example, even if we successfully stop our dog from being unsteady, it does not mean we have successfully dealt with the emotion and will not guarantee that our dog can practice self-control if we are not able to give the cue.
Before we can move on to teaching our dogs how to manage themselves, we need to work out what our dogs would do, of their own free will, if we did not touch or restrain them, or give cues such as wait, or leave, or sit etc.
To perform a baseline assessment, you will need to work through the following scenarios and make notes of the outcome. You might want to do these in a few locations, with and without distractions, to see if this changes the outcome.
With your dog by your side, no cues given, and no physical restraints or pressure from your body language being applied, ask yourself the following question: “Can my dog remain seated, or standing, beside me when….”
- We are both standing still
- With an empty food bowl 2 metres in front of us
- With food in the bowl 2 metres in front
- While food is being placed in the bowl by a helper
- When a dummy is placed 2 metres in front of us by a helper
- When a dummy is dropped 2 metres in front of us by a helper
- When a dummy is thrown 2 metres in front of us by a helper
If your dog is successful, you can reward them. Make sure that you vary the rewards so that sometimes it comes directly from you and sometimes they are released to the food or dummy.
If your dog is unsteady and runs in, there’s no need to do anything, as you did not ask them to do anything. Simply take this vital information that your steadiness is attached to a preventative cue or management strategy rather than your dog’s emotional ability to manage themselves.
If you are concerned about the impact this will have on your steadiness, remember that you should not be using any cues for this baseline assessment, and you do not need to do multiple repetitions to get the information you need.
Whatever you normally say or do to achieve “steadiness” will, therefore not be poisoned or ruined and your dog should not have too many opportunities to self-reward.
You can take this information forward and begin the process of teaching your gundog about self-control and how to train the emotional state of steadiness.
Getting started with your gundog’s steadiness
If you want to teach your dog the emotional state of steadiness and ability to control themselves, instead of an alternative behaviour like sit, or wait, or leave, or having to rely on a steady fob forever, the “Get It, Don’t Get It” game is the foundation exercise we use in our classes, workshops and 121s.
It will become the backbone of all your steadiness training. There are a lot of layers to steadiness and many more steps to go through, but you need to teach this foundation first.
Get It, Don’t Get It
The main rules of this game are, no more than 10 repetitions in one session before having a break, and no more than two or three sessions in a day. Also keep it random as it is important that your dog does not try to predict what is going to be cued.
Step one
With your dog sitting or standing close to you, place a piece of food in a bowl on the ground. If your dog tries to steal the food, lift the bowl a little so they can’t get the piece of food.
Wait until they offer the tiniest bit of self-restraint, but are still looking at the bowl, then click and say “Get It” allowing them to take the food from the bowl.
Repeat until the bowl can be left on the ground. Your dog should start to go still and focus on the bowl when you put food in it.
Step two
Now you can move your position so that you and your dog are in different orientations to each other and the “Get It” bowl. This will prevent you from using your body to guard or block your dog’s access to the bowl. Remember this is about your dog exercising their own self-control.
Step three
Extend the length of time that your dog is looking at the bowl before you click and say “Get It”. You’ll want to aim for up to five seconds at this stage. Your dog should be going to the bowl with enthusiasm and showing signs that they are enjoying this game. If they make a mistake, make sure you laugh it off - after all this is only a game and is supposed to be fun. I usually laugh and say “cheat!” as I reset the exercise.
Step four
Now that you have established the basic rules of the game, we will introduce a turn away from the food bowl. Place a piece of food in the bowl and take another piece of food in your hand. While your dog is looking at the bowl, say “Turn”, put the food under their nose to lure them away 180° and then throw that piece of food for them to chase. After a few repetitions, instead of having food in your hand, just put the food in the bowl, say “Turn” and then throw a piece of food - this is called fading the lure.
Step five
After your dog understands the turn away from the bowl, you can then reward them by releasing them with the “Get It” cue to the bowl OR you can wait for him to check back with you and then release him OR pay to the mouth and reset for the next repetition. Keep these different reinforcers varied so that you don’t end up with a chain or a pattern - remember the key word in this whole exercise is ‘RANDOM’.
Step six
Vary your cues between “Get It” and “Turn” making sure that 75% of your repetitions are “Get It”. It is important to keep the enthusiasm for the “Get It” bowl really high.
Step seven
The next step is to have the food in the bowl, your dog looking at it, and you say a random word that has no meaning (e.g. ‘purple’). If your dog remains steady, then click and say “Get It”. If they make a mistake and go for the food on the random word, then laugh it off and try again! If they err a second time, you need to go back over your previous steps. This is where your dog is learning to discriminate what you are saying without any visual help and you are using random words (we call it ‘white noise’) that have no meaning to them.
Progressing your gundog’s steadiness
If you have already trained your gundog how to be steady in a training environment you might now be looking to prepare for the shooting season by proofing and refining your gundog’s steadiness in a realistic, but relaxed and controlled environment with live game.
Together with her husband Chris, Helen Phillips, founder of Clicker Gundog, runs a small shoot at Kemble’s Field. Throughout September, the Steadiness around Live Game Exposure Days offer handlers the opportunity to put their gundog’s existing steadiness skills into practice around live game, scent-rich ground, and simulated shoot conditions.
With opportunities to hunt in cover crops and woodland, proof steadiness around live game, and retrieve cold game, these sessions provide the ideal chance to build confidence, increase exposure, and fine-tune your gundog’s behaviours ahead of the British season.
Live game will be used as part of controlled scenarios, with starter pistols and gunshot included. No game will be shot, but cold game will be used for retrieves.
Across the three sessions, dogs and handlers will experience exercises tailored to the breed or role they intend to cover on the shoot (e.g. beating or picking up).
For more information, dates and requirements, please click here