Using the barrel to start breaking your derby

Above are two pictures of my barrel set-up.  Notice I have a metal frame around my barrel, and in the second picture that I have a cpvc pole 8 feet tall, with a 10 foot cord on it, 12 feet in front of the barrel .
I do not introduce birds until the third day.  For the first three days, I set the dog up on the barrel, with an electric collar on the flank, attached to two bungee chords from the top on the metal frame. I stroke the dog under his chin, up his back, up his tail, and up between his back legs , in that order.  I then point a finger at him, say whoa ONCE, touch him with the E collar once on the lowest setting,  and walk a big circle in front of him to get to the other side.  Repeat this same sequence on the far side, and take the dog down , and walk him around or put it on a stake out for 2 or 3 minutes.  Repeat this sequence 3 times, and put the dog up.  Do every day 3 days in a row, then introduce birds in a crate.  Guarantee, he will come off that barrel to get to them.  Touch him one time with the electric collar, on it's lowest setting, and put him back up on the barrel. and repeat the stroking sequence , say whoa ONE time, and walk out and kick the bird crate.  When he stands for this without moving, put one of your birds on the tether, and let it walk around on the ground.  If he moves, touch him one time(low setting), and stroke him again.  When he stand for this, without moving,  usually about 3  times, then walk the bird up, and make it fly it's circle in front of the dog.  As the work progresses, you can move the barrel up closer to the pigeon, until it brushes the dog on it's circle flight. This sequence of training should take from 8 to 10 days from start to finish.  When your done, you can walk in front of him on point, point your finger, and flush and shoot.  The finger pointing becomes an unsaid whoa.   bud

When is a derby ready to break ?

At the top of the page is a picture of Shadow Mountain Jack, pointing birds at 25 months of age.  The birds had been flushed, and we were working on him standing with style, after flush.  He has been "steady " since he was 13 months old.  At this stage of his training, we are working on style, standing for long periods after flush, and standing out of site, and stops to flush.  I feel all these topics are inter-related to the mentality and thinking process of the canine.
To me, breaking a dog as we do it for field trialing, is a mental process.  If you do not let the dog develop "bad" habits, then the process is so much shorter, as you do not have to do any displacement, only developing an understanding of what you want.
At this level, we need to talk about being smarter than the dog to be in control.  Who is training whom ?
I often say when you get your dog to understand English,  then you can teach him, them, any thing.
They are really smarter than we give them credit for.  They under stand your posture, voice inflection, touch, body language, and many more concepts that we seldom think about.  An example is feed every day for a week at 10:00 : a.m.  Then let 10:00 a.m. come and go.  notice the noise level of the kennel at 10:15.  They will all vocalize that it  is past time to eat. What happens when you then sound mad, and yell at them ?  Yep its hit the dog house and be quiet time.
So learn to use all of your body posturing, as well as vocal to teach your dog.
Also learn where to touch your dog, and how to put your hands on your dog, so that it  is comforting, and assuring.  Learn by doing, observing, and changing.  Mike Johnson is one of my very best friends, and was very successful as a major circuit trainer with dogs like Millers White Diamond, Millers Excell, Kodak Moment, and many others.  Mike did not want his owners, or any one else touching any of his dogs, ever.  We had a lot of long talks about this and other training techniques.  His thoughts were, he did not want the dogs to have to re-adjust their education about people, because of mixed signals. 
Has this conversation given you reason to think about your approach to training ?  Drop us a note and lets discuss it.   bud