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WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF HEAD SWINGING?

Head Swinging occurs when a dog doesn’t stay focused on a gun station that's been pointed out, doesn’t watch a mark as it travels through the arc to the ground. In most cases they end up looking at another gun station or something else that’s more attractive, exciting or rewarding.

This is different from bugging. Bugging occurs when the dog avoids looking at a mark, a gustation or a blind because they fear something. Stress, pressure, a lot of failure and inexperience can lead to bugging. A different approach needs to be used to deal with bugging rather than the one we’re going to discuss here.

WHAT CAUSES IT TO DEVELOP?

• Too many tight marking situations
• Putting the flyer in close to the line
• Too many multiples
• Insufficient training that encourages the dog to stay focused on the mark and discourages them from being enamored with a more exciting/attractive gun station.
• Calling for the marks to be thrown in quick succession rather than calling for a short pause between throws
• Failing to maintain a standard for watching the throws.

HOW CAN WE TRAIN TO PREVENT IT FROM HAPPENING IN THE FIRST PLACE?

• Open up your marks dramatically on a regular basis.
• Place your flyer station at a middle distance or long station in a high percentage of your tests. 90% or more.
• Use the flyer on marks that require your dog to make disciplined decisions as often as you can.
• Do long singles using a test that has multiple gun stations on a regular basis. The marking configuration to use for these tests is an indented triple.
• Set up tests that require the dog to do a long double before they get to watch the short mark.

WHAT ARE SOME STRATEGIES USED TO DEAL WITH IT?

While insisting that your dog meets the standard is important, correcting your dog is rarely the right strategy. The first approach employs a strategy that tries to shape the behavior you want without the use of pressure.

1. If your dog head swings before you’re able to count one steamboat after the bird hits the ground, calmly and quietly talk them into looking back at the correct gun station.
2. Once they’re looking at the correct gun station, have the thrower throw or rethrow the mark without any noise or gunshot. If they’ve watched the mark adequately, move onto the next step. If not, repeat the two previous steps.
3. If the mark is a single, send your dog just as the bird hits the ground. Our focus isn’t to work on steadiness, it’s to help our dog develop a habit, to refrain from moving their eyes off of the gun station that’s throwing the mark and to stay locked on the bird itself.
4. If it’s a double, pivot to face the next gun station to encourage your dog to watch the next throw. If they head swing, repeat steps one and two.

The second approach can be used to deal with a chronic head swinging problem that isn’t improving with the use of the first approach. This approach employs correction and leaves the dog with a distaste for head swinging.

Before you use this method, you should consider a few things:

1. Do you feel that your training program has the right balance? If you’re not sure what that entails, revisit the first two parts of this lesson. Remember, if you’ve been doing a lot of things to encourage head swinging and not enough things to encourage your dog to stay focused, using correction as a tactic might be premature.
2. You should only employ this tactic when there is a great deal of separation between the marks. We want to be sure that our dog understands that the head swing is what caused the correction, so the error must be clear to the dog. Correcting a dog when the marks are tight can cause your dog to become buggy in future marking situations where the marks are tight.
3. An e-collar or a pinch collar can be used to make the correction but I prefer a heeling stick correction. 

How to make a correction for head swinging:

1. If your dog head swings before you’re able to count one steamboat after the bird hits the ground, make a correction with the tool of your choice and simultaneously say sit.
2. After making the correction, calmly and quietly talk your dog back into looking at the correct gun station and then ask for a silent rethrow. If they’ve watched the mark adequately, move onto the next step. If not, repeat the two previous steps.
3. If the mark is a single, send your dog just as the bird hits the ground.
4. If it’s a double, pivot to face the next gun station to encourage your dog to watch the next throw. If they head swing, repeat steps one and two.