Whining Dog

[srfishin15]

I have a lab that is not new to hunting but IS new to waterfowl hunting. She has a very hard time sitting still while we are out there but thats gotten a little better now that we're a few trips into the season. The one thing I cannot get her to do is be quiet. She whines LOUD the entire time, especially when there are ducks flying close and I start to call to them. It's loud enough that it seemed to flare a few birds today. Anybody else's dog ever do this? How do you get it to stop? She's a bred pheasant hunter and associates hunting with running and movement. But the whining and pawing at me I can't get her to stop. Any advice will help.

Thanks.

[BrdHunter01]

We had the same problem w out lab last year. She was 3 and had never hunted before as we kinda inherited this dog. She whined all the time! Non stop! We brought the bark color out a few times. She would whine so loud that she would activate the bark color and get a nice shock! That shut her up for a little while anyway. If u have self service shock color i would use that... This pretty much lasted all season. Now this year, for whatever reason, she hasn't done it at all!

[Superduty]

A vocal dog is one of the toughest problems to correct. Often the more mad you get, the more excited the dog gets and the more it whines. It's difficult to get the dog to realize the vocalization is the reason for the correction with the collar. Be careful with a bark collar. Shotgun blast can trigger it as well as whining and barking. You can condition your dog to be shocked when a gun goes off. Not good. A good friend of mine spent over $1000 to correct his whining lab. It worked for about half of the first season. One of the best retrievers I've seen but he ended up a house dog because of the whining problem. It got to the point where the dog was howling. If it were my dog and I thought the dog was going to be a great duck dog, I would look into having the dog surgically debarked. Lots of show dog owners do this. Kind of cruel, but it might be the only surefire alternative. Good luck!

[srfishin15]

It's not enough of a problem that i would de-bark my dog, but thanks. I'll just wait and hope it gets better with more experience and more training.

[Scott M]

You might try the same question in the hunting dogs forum.

My dog whines, but thankfully its a mostly hushed whine, and she gets quiet when we call or talk in hushed tones or whisper. She knows its game time then. Take her out west or somewhere that you can see and shoot a bunch of ducks. Once she gets into a pile of birds, she'll get into the hunt, watch the decoys, watch the skies, and understand that she has to be quiet for it to be successful.

[Todd Caswell]

A vocal dog is one of the biggest and hardest things or problems to fix hands down. Never had one but have seen ALOT of them in HT and FT as well as hunting dogs.

I shouldn't say I have never had one because my oldest 11 now would wine when ducks were in the air, geese weren't the trigger ducks were. All I can say is she knew what " Quiet " meant and for one reason or the other I was able to correct her with the collar " Quiet "BURN" (not nick) Quiet and it went away, I didn't nag her to death with little nicks but gave her a huge correction right off the bat and it worked with her. Not all and for that matter very few will that process will work. Most of the time if you put collar pressure on them for noise it only gets worse

For most trial and HT dogs that are in training year round as the problem arrises it will most likely go away as the stress and level of difficulty in daily set ups risses as well as the standard. This doesn't work for the hunting dog thast gets trained a few weeks befor the season and then put back on the couch after the season is done.

The most proven solution for vocal dogs is a very strict 3 to 4 monthes of boot camp very strict OB a few sessions a day and nothing else. Problem is most owners are not willing to put in the time or the dedication to get the work done. They give in befor the results will show up..

For the OP sadly in your case Time and Experience will most likey only make matters worse, unless you nip it in the butt right now , put you dog on the shelf for the season, and get down to bussiness, and look forward to a quiet dog next year.

[SledNeck]

My dog whines when she's bored or if we shoot and don't hit anything, it's not loud and I don't think of it as being a problem. She shuts right up when ducks/ geese are coming in. She whines quite a bit when we're down in Arkansas hunting the timber and she has to sit on the dog stand the whole time. I'd whine too.

[lindy rig]

#1 you need to be consistent. If she can get away with it sometimes you are sending mixed signals. #2 often the dog is looking for attention. If the attention you give isn't very clear and strict enough then you may be fueling the problem. #3 reward a quiet dog from time to time. #4 you should set up your training environment to mimic the duck hunt

[srfishin15]

Thank you

[GatorBait]

I've seldom used my springer for ducks when we were sitting on pond edges and such as she can do blind retrieves easily for us. I had this same problem, she knows exactly what is going on and is pretty much dying to put her jaws around a bird. A few corrections/commands with the collar solved this issue pretty quickly. Lil different with an upland trained dog as they are so use to being mobile and not sitting there waiting. But, all worked out in the end.