.THE STEADYING PROCESS
By Paul Kinney, Sunland, CA

Paul Kinney lives in Southern California with his wife, Jeannine, and their 8 year old son "Big Joe". They are active members in three Southern California spaniel clubs. Paul trained his first spaniel in 1979. In 1988 he started training with the Arrowhead Club and has been committed to field trials ever since. Paul ran his first all age stake in 1989 and finished his first Field Champion in 1992. Today, they are actively training, shooting, planting and judging field trials and Hunting Tests.

Throughout the training process the most technical response we will ask of the dog is to be steady. It is an unnatural response that goes against every other thing we ask of the dog. Because it is so technical it is very important that it is done correctly so as not to affect some of the other traits of the dog. As this system is not the only way to steady a dog, it is one way that has been proved to fully CONDITION the dog to be steady whenever necessary. I state CONDITION in bold because, only when a dog is FULLY CONDITIONED to stop without any mental thought, when his body responds before his brain tells him to stop, is he FULLY CONDITIONED or steady. Only after a dog has been CONDITIONED can you claim he is trained. What any professional coach or athlete will tell you is, that to be successful and beat the competition, all the basic fundamentals must become a natural response, it must be CONDITIONED into the athlete to become an involuntary response, a reaction with no mental thought. With this in mind we must set out to CONDITION an animal to give us a desired response, a reaction that becomes so CONDITIONED in the animal's mind that his body responds without any thought.

We have now become dog trainers. If you are unable to use any of this information you must always remember the 2 most important rules of dog training. (1) Consistency - ALWAYS be consistent with your commands whether in the field or at home. (2) Timing - It is more important to know WHEN NOT to do something than it is to know WHEN TO do something.

As you go through this or any other training process it is always important to keep in mind that as dog trainers when the dog fails to give us the desired response, the dog has not failed, we as trainers have failed to convey to the dog the wanted response. The outline below is designed as a positive procedure with no reason for discipline that may cause confusion on the dog's part. It is important not to test the dog and to set up each training situation so the dog will succeed! Failure causes confusion, confusion causes a lack of confidence and a lack of confidence will cause failure.

During this process we must always keep in mind the long term goal but not be over anxious to achieve it in one session. We must be driven by the short term goal of the drill at hand and understand that it is one block in the foundation of a FULLY TRAINED AND CONDITIONED dog. A professional trainer once told me that it only takes 120 hours to fully train a dog but it must be done 5 minutes at a time or it will take forever.

Only after the dog has mastered the drill do we move on to the next drill, as we are building the foundation one block at a time and only when each drill has been completed and mastered will the dog be conditioned and ready for the next drill. As the process comes together you will see every area of the dog improve.

I cannot tell you how long this process will take as it will differ with each dog. I can tell you that, no matter how old the dog or how many bad habits he has, the longer you take to complete this process the better. For the concept behind conditioning is repetition, the more times you do something the more it becomes a condition. A minimum amount of 4 to 6 months for the best cases and as long as 18 months for the worst.

The steadying process that I have designed is devised to enhance the other qualities of the spaniel, like flushing, marking, control and aggressiveness to cover.

The outline below will guide you through each drill step by step. If you commit to this procedure you must follow it religiously as the end result will not be a conditioned response if not followed.
It is very important to follow each drill outline precisely. It is equally important to follow the outline and not train when the conditions are not right for the drill. I cannot stress enough how important it is that if the conditions are not perfect for the drill you must not train, even if you just drove 2 hours to get to the training grounds. This is the time when you must remember the long term goal and not be motivated by the short term. If the conditions are not perfect for each drill or you cannot set the field as per the outline, you must not train. You can cause more problems or have all your progress destroyed by trying to rush the process. You also must stop all other training and focus on these drills, any training that you may be doing now may conflict with this process.

THE FINAL GOAL
To be successful in anything we do we must establish a goal and the steps to accomplish that goal. The final goal that we are out to achieve is to have the dog stop and sit immediately at a given command, whistle or an event that may occur in the field (honoring a brace bird). To have the dog's body respond before he has time to think what he is supposed to do. This is our final goal and we must keep this in mind during the entire process. Each drill outlined within this process will have a separate goal, a building block in the foundation to a fully conditioned and trained dog. It is very important that you not move to the next drill until you mastered the current drill. If the dog fails during the new drill, immediately return to the previous drill that was recently mastered. If the dog succeeds that drill, go right in to the new drill. The dog should then succeed in the new drill. Each drill is designed as a stepping stone to the next. If any one of the drills are not completely mastered it will be hard to complete the next drill or meet the final goal