Meet the Trainers: Q&A with Veteran Dog Trainer Al Klotsche

Courtesy of Al Klotsche

Meet veteran retriever trainer Al Klotsche of Wildrose Kennels.
Location: Sheboygan, WI
How long have you been a trainer? 10 years

Early Stages:

For new puppy buyers, what should be the training priorities in that dog’s first year?

The most important part of puppy training is obedience and patience. We spend a lot of time teaching the puppy how to control their energy and entrenching the basics of proper heeling, recalling, and place. All of the basic work that we do has the end-state in mind. For instance, when we teach recalling, we are doing this from one platform to another. By standing behind the second platform when the puppy is recalling to us, we are creating the muscle memory of a front-facing retrieve. The amount of actual retrieving we do in the first few months is fairly limited and our puppies see more denials then they do retrieves - this is what builds steadiness in a dog. Only after the basics are firmly entrenched will we move onto more advanced work. We have a saying; “Make haste slowly”. 

What’s the biggest mistake you see amateur trainers make when dealing with a puppy?

By far, the biggest mistake we see people make is pushing their dogs too fast. Too many people want to create that “Instagram post” with their three-month old puppy carrying a pigeon in their mouth. While this makes for a cute picture, it is likely creating some behaviors that will be challenging to correct in the future. There is no magic recipe for how to train a dog in half the time. The only way that you can get a great finished dog is to methodically work through each of the steps. First you need to get everything working right up close on land before you begin extending the distance. Then after you have it perfect on land, you can move to the water. We believe that a behavior is not truly entrenched until a dog can do it five times in five different locations.

As a kennel owner and trainer, we are blessed to have many dogs to hunt over in a given season. I understand that new dog owners are anxious to get their puppy out hunting, but I would advise against having a dog in a live hunting experience before they are about 18 months old. If one negative (uncontrollable) thing happens, you will end up spending months trying to correct that unwanted behavior. We often will take a younger dog out on a hunt, but they are there as an observer to learn from the older dogs. At the end of the day, if the pup has shown good steadiness, they will be rewarded with a warm duck floating among the decoys in plain sight. A day full of steadiness and learning followed by a high-impact reward is the best way to get them started.

How significant is choosing a name? Pros and cons to different names?

The two things I recommend to clients around naming are picking a short name (one or two syllable words) and trying to avoid names that are close to common commands or hunting language (sit, heel, come, here, place, give, fetch). Other than that, I love to see the creativity that people come up with. Often times letting the family have a say in the naming is a great way to bring them into the overall experience.

Courtesy of Al Klotsche

Specific Behaviors:

What’s the most difficult introduction (water, gunfire, multiple retrieves, dog blinds, etc.) trainers deal with? 

None of these are terribly difficult if handled correctly. The problem we have is when clients rush things and bring a dog in that has a fear of something—this can take us weeks if not months to overcome. Our methodology is very slow introductions “at the dog’s pace”. 

• If we are working with a dog blind and the dog wants to jump in right away, fine. However, if they want to walk around it and sniff it for a few days, that is fine as well. We may even put their food inside the dog blind to make a positive association.
• We don’t introduce puppies to water until it is around 55-60F. Our initial introductions are in shallow water at the edge of a pond with a gradual entry. If a puppy is hesitant to enter the water, we will often bring out another dog who loves the water and have the puppy watch them do water retrieves. More times than not, jealousy kicks in and the little one launches into the water on their own. 
• Our clients tend to be very adventurous which is why we created the Wildrose Adventure Dog Series which includes activities such as hiking, fishing, camping, bike riding, ATV, watercraft, etc.. In all of these cases, we start with a very slow introduction to new objects and let the dogs become comfortable with them at their pace.

 

What is the simplest way to correct breaking and improve steadiness?

Tons and tons of denials. A denial is when the dog is sitting on a dog stand and you toss a bumper in their vicinity, telling them a gentle “no” and don’t let them break for the retrieve. With young dogs, I will throw 10 denials, twice a day for them. If and when they are sitting patiently through all of them, I let them pick up the last one. Some have asked me if this will dampen their retrieving drive. My reply, “If I put a piece of chocolate cake in front of you for 9 days in a row, but didn’t let you eat it, how good do you think that will taste on day 10 when you finally do get to eat it!” 

Steadiness is the hallmark of a well-trained Labrador. We often hunt with multiple dogs in a blind at one time. When a bird goes down, none of the dogs will move, all will look up and ask; “is this my turn”? When you see that in a duck blind you know you have steadiness mastered.

How do you approach correcting whining in a young dog?

We get on them pretty quickly about this with a verbal correction. If they continue, we will move the dog further away from the “desired” activity until they can demonstrate being calm. At Wildrose, we do a lot of group work training, which is invaluable for this. Dogs need to wait patiently for their turn. If they wait patiently, they get the reward of retrieving and affection. If they are not quiet, they continue to be moved back away from the group until they quiet down. Vocalness can be a common issue, but we work very hard to breed dogs that are not vocal. Besides retrieving and marking, two of the important standards of British field trials are steadiness and non-vocal. If you see a dog with a FTCH or FTW in their background, you can be sure that they were excellent in these two areas. 

What are your rules or guidelines when dealing with training in the summer heat?

We are very careful with the summer heat. In Wisconsin we are blessed with summers that are generally not too hot. When the temperature rises over 75F, especially with high humidity, we only train in the early morning and late afternoon. We also incorporate a lot more water work on hot days. Before or after the training session on a hot day, rather than kennel them right away, we have our dogs lie down on a dog stand while they cool down and we finish training our other dogs. This is also a great way to create steadiness. On warm days with little air circulation, be careful not to put a wet dog back into a crate that has poor ventilation. 

Courtesy of Al Klotsche

Hunting Focus:

What are the main training indicators that your dog, regardless of age, is ready for the fall hunting season?

Each of our Wildrose facilities have created a wide variety of waterfowl and upland hunting environments. The more different scenarios you can train for that replicate the environment you will be hunting in, the better off you will be. I live by the saying; “practice as you would play”. Setting up realistic hunting scenarios can be time intensive, but it really pays off in the field. For instance, one scenario everyone can replicate is to travel to a remote destination for training. Upon arrival, have you dog unload, and after they relieve themselves, set up a dog stand for them to sit on while you unload the car, carry your gear to the training locations (while your dog is still on place) and then come back to heel them to your training area. When your dog can demonstrate this level of calmness at your side and with you out of sight, you are ready for more advanced work. When setting up your retrieves, sprinkle the field or water with decoys so that your dog is used to running through decoys and spinners. Most of the time, you will find that retrieving is the easy part, it is the steadiness where most dogs will break down. 

What are some of the most common bad habits dogs tend pick up during the hunting season, and how are they addressed?

The two bad habits we get the most calls about are, breaking from a waterfowl blind and ranging too far on upland birds. 

Breaking from a waterfowl blind is simply a matter of unsteadiness. In all likelihood, the dog has been accustomed to everything that falls from the sky is theirs. We correct this behavior by going back to the basics of throwing denials. For every retrieve the dog is going to get, it will see 5+ denials that it will not get to pick up. Sometimes, we walk out and pick up the denials ourselves, and sometimes we will send another dog. If a dog is breaking, it is best to start your corrections on land, as it is difficult to change their behavior once they are in the water.

Ranging too far is a common issue with flushing dogs and is somewhat understandable when your dog is in a field full of running roosters. We begin teaching our dogs to quarter by working side to side from one platform to another. In this case, we are building muscle memory and the association that two peeps on the whistle means to change direction. Once this quartering pattern is engrained, we move to short grass and then ultimately taller grass. With younger dogs, we will periodically use a remote sit whistle when they are at the outer edge of our desired range. In that case, they will sit and then we will recall them back to us and start the quartering again. 

We teach our dogs at a very young age to “sit to flush” so that when a bird does go up, their response is to sit, or remain still while marking the bird. When it comes time for the retrieve, sometimes we send the dog from where they are, other times, we will recall them to us first and then send them. We will also incorporate other dogs into the drill in an effort to teach honoring.

What are your ideal expectations for your retriever throughout the waterfowl season?

Continuous improvement. I keep a log of all of our hunts. While it is fun to recall successful 300-yard blind retrieves, what is more helpful is writing down where you and your dog may have struggled. This creates the outline for your future training sessions. For instance, if you dog broke down on a long retrieve through multiple transitions, you can work on chaining together different sections of the complete retrieve and then ultimately run them together. 

While we enjoy training with the dogs during the off-season, there is no substitute for the actual hunt. It is always amazing to me how quick the learning is with dogs that have the benefit of hunting multiple days in a row. Typically, your birds are going to be shot over the decoys in a way that is pretty repeatable from one day to another. Dogs quickly realize that most of the ducks they are retrieving are going to be on the outer edge of the decoys and as such, swim right through the decoys with no distractions. My favorite is diving ducks on the coast of Texas. After about four or five attempts at retrieving a cripple who dives, the dogs get frustrated and realize the only way to end this is to put their head under water and dive down. While there are some things we can practice to replicate this, there is no substitute for experience in the blind.