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The Check Cord
The check cord is another important and versatile tool. When the using on a puppy to drag you may want to use a shorter and liter cord. When just letting a pup drag you want be sure to use a cord without a knot in it so that it will not hang up on anything. The cord I use is pictured and is made special for the Smith family.
I used the Check Cord for several things, gives me control when I working a dog on a natural retrieve, teaching recall and quartering.
The quartering drill is quite simple, just get the dog started in the field and make 90 degree turns giving the dog a cue as it passes the 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock pattern in front of you. At first the dog will just pull and try to go the direction they want to go or run behind you. Just keep cuing and in short order they will start looking at you and going with you. Delmar Smith said "If you get the dog to look at you, you can teach them something"! For recall just stop walking and give a firm cue and drag the dog to you with the check cord, bend over at the waist to get them to readily come to you, bending over is not as intimidating as standing tall. Before you know it you will be adding verbal commands to turn them by overlaying the verbal with the check cord cue. Changing direction is important to teach the dog to come go with you and to get them to hunt a area by hand signals. You are the pack leader and you need to show them what direction you want to go. The dog is going to key off your body language. If you want the dog to cover an area to the right you need to move in that direction and cue the dog. All these check cord cues relate to the ecollar on the neck, the stimulation replaces the cue and when they are 100% with the stimulation cue I introduce hand signals. At first I will use stimulation walk and raise my hand in the direction I want them to go. Soon the dog will keep track of you and will quarter on his own, he will look back occasionally to check in. Over time the dog will handle to hand signals if that is your desire.
I use the check cord to quarter a dog into birds and to the whoa posts. When the dog catches scent stop them and hold them back while the bird is flushed this is the onset of get them to stop at first scent and holding through the flush.
For the recall I use a slightly stronger stimulation after the dog has mastered the quartering drills. Once the dog has got the recall down I switch the recall to the continuous tone on the collar that I use. At that point I can give a momentary tone and the dog will look at me, at that point I can change his direction with hand signals or keep the tone button pressed to recall. This is a nice feature when in the late season pheasant field with educated birds.
To get a check cord like the one pictured use the following link http://www.ronniesmithkennels.com/store/check-cord/
To get more detail on check cord use contact me on facebook https://www.facebook.com/Field.Gordon.Setters/ or through the contact page on this web site.
And remember 1 Cor. 10:31 .......... "what ever you do, do all for the Glory of God.
