4 steps to teach gundog stop whistle

Step 1
*Start by introducing this whistle in your heelwork.
*While doing your heelwork, stop walking blow the whistle and ask the dog to sit. Once the dog has sat reward them.
*Repeat this over and over again until the dog begins to sit off the whistle without you having to give them the sit command.
*Once the dog is sitting just from the sit whistle without a voice command to reinforce it you can begin to blow the whistle during heelwork without stopping with the dog and expect them to sit and stay. You may need to go back to reinforcing the whistle with a sit command too at this stage.

Step 2
*Once your dog has a clear understanding of the sit whistle in the heelwork you can move onto proofing the whistle outside of this.
*Allow your dog to be away from the heel position and be doing their own thing in a relaxed and calm manner
*While the dog is close to you blow the whistle, if they do not sit straight away move closer to them and blow the whistle again followed by your voice command and then reward
*When you get the sit from the whistle always go to your dog while they’re in the sit and reward
*Repeat this step over and over until you are consistently getting the sit each time the whistle is blown.

Step 3
*Once your dog has mastered steps 1 and 2 you can move onto getting the sit in more challenging situations.
*Leave the dog in a stay and walk a sensible distance from them, when ready recall them out of the stay and then blow the whistle. You may need to reinforce this with a sit command too at this stage, you can also use your body language to communicate to the dog that you want them to stop by putting your hand in the air.
*When the dog sits off the whistle return to the dog and reward them.
*Repeat this step over and over, swapping between a full recall and a stop on recall to proof your stop whistle.

Step 4
*Once you have mastered the first 3 stages and are very confident your dog is clear on the stop whistle command you can begin to teach a stop away.
*This is the hardest step of teaching the stop whistle as the dog is travelling away from you and will usually be focused on something other than you.
*When you first start to teach this, it would be preferable to have a helper. Drop a dummy for you as if you were doing a marked retrieve.
*Get the helper to drop a dummy calmly that the dog marks, when you are ready send your dog and then blow the whistle. When you first start out you will want to blow the whistle quite soon after sending the dog so the dog has not picked up too much speed and is not too close to the dummy.
*If the dog does not stop on the whistle, the helper needs to pick the dummy up before the dog gets there so they do not self reward.
*If you do get the stop go to your dog and reward them. You can then send them for the dummy as an additional reward.
*If you are struggling to get this step let us know and we can show you alternative methods to try.