Beginner gundog exercise to improve marking

This exercise is to help your dog develop its marking abilities and learn to mark further away and run out confidently. The aim of the exercise is for the dog to mark the dummy and run out straight and confident to the area of the dummy without hunting its way up.
Start by working out what distance your dog is able to confidently mark and run out to a dummy without hunting their way up. Once you have this start point you are going to start to teach the dog to mark items which are further and further away.
* Start by finding the point at which you dog loses the mark and has to hunt its way to the dummy.
* Throw a marked retrieve and then get your helper to stand the dummy up so it is more visible.
* If the dog runs out confidently ask the helper to move back 5 paces and repeat.
* If/when the dog starts to loose the mark again and begins hunting up move 5 paces closer again and repeat the exercise.
* Finish on a good note after 3/4 retrieves so the dog does not loose enthusiasm or become tired.
* Continue to progress with distance over a period of time in your training.

[@Turpingreen]

The idea is to keep the area of the fall the same but you move the distance with the dog.
The dog becomes more reliant on the position of the dummy thrower than purely marking itself.
The progression of this to blinds will take longer with the dog asking questions from the fact that you are sending the dog on its name.
The trainer using white dummies are effectively training a potential anxiety problem in the dog.

[@Imperialdogtraining]

Different approaches for different people. This way has worked great for all our dogs and we train with field trial champs who use this method.

[@Turpingreen]

That isn’t training to do marks,the dog is marking the dummy thrower.

[@Imperialdogtraining]

Appreciate your point but you can see the dog loses the mark at a certain distance regardless of where the thrower is. We do play with the position of the thrower but for the purposes of the video we are trying to show the basics of the exercise for beginner dogs.