Your 11 month old pointer stops mid-stride, one foot up, nose out, and turns to stone. Sometimes it is a pheasant. Sometimes it is a pigeon 200 feet away, or a plastic bag.
You can call, wave food and walk circles round your dog, and nothing happens. Then they release on their own terms and carry on as though nothing occurred.
What a point is
Pointing and setting breeds were bred to range ahead, locate game by air scent, and hold still so a person could catch up. Freezing is the useful part, selected for deliberately.
In adolescence it arrives properly for the first time, often suddenly, and it generalises to anything that moves or smells interesting. Your dog is not stuck and is not ignoring you on purpose.
Around the onset of adolescence dogs also respond less to the cues of the person who raised them. That responsiveness returns later. A pointing dog at 11 months old is the least available dog you will own.
Holding a point is also paid by itself. The intensity is the reward, which makes it one of the best-paid things your dog does all week.
Tell a point from a frightened freeze
These look similar for the first 2 seconds and need completely different handling. Watch the whole dog rather than the stopping.
A point is forward: weight leaning toward the thing, tail up or level, ears forward, mouth closed, body loose under the stillness.
A frightened freeze is backward: weight shifted away, tail low or tucked, a lowered head, lip licking, or a dog who will not eat.
A point ends with your dog moving in or losing interest. A fear freeze often ends with a bolt, a bark, or a refusal to walk on.
A point happens toward birds, rabbits, cats and movement. Fear is usually about a specific object, person, dog or noise.
If it looks like the fear version, stop reading this and use distance instead. Working below the point at which your dog reacts is the condition for learning near something frightening.
Work with the point rather than against it
Stop calling into a locked point. An unanswered call spends the cue for nothing, and you are competing with the most interesting moment of the walk.
Walk quietly up to your dog's shoulder instead, take hold of the harness or the line, and then release them yourself with a word.
Build that word on purpose. Pick something like off you go, say it, then move away and pay your dog for following. Do it 10 times a day on easy things.
Let a short point finish. 5 seconds of pointing a hedge costs you nothing, and interrupting every single one makes the next one more intense.
Reward-based training is associated with higher reported responsiveness and fewer reported problem behaviours, and a pointer will work hard for a thrown toy.
Keep the long line on for now
Use a 20 to 30 foot long line on a well-fitted harness in open country. A point that turns into a flush and a chase is how a pointer ends up half a mile away.
Scan ahead of your dog. You want to see the pheasant 20 seconds before your dog air-scents it.
Avoid stubble, game cover and the estuary at low tide while you are building the release. Walk the hedge-lined lane on purpose.
No off lead near roads, railways, livestock or cliffs at any point in adolescence.
Behaviour change is built from management plus reinforcement together, and for a pointing breed the management half is the line and the route.
Never tie a long line to your waist or wrap it round your hand.
Give the searching a legal job
Do 5 minutes of find it in long grass, with a toy or a handful of dinner. A searching dog finishes settled where a sprinting dog finishes revved.
Play retrieve with rules: you throw, your dog brings it, you take it, and you decide when the next throw happens.
Use the throw as payment for the release from a point. For many pointers being sent again beats cheese.
Look at a gundog-style class that works with reward-based methods, or mantrailing or scent work. A pointer with a job is easier to live with.
Relaxation is trained as a behaviour in its own right, in short repeatable sets below your dog's threshold. Put a chew on a mat after the searching.
Safety note
A dog who stops dead and will not move, shakes, or cannot be roused is not pointing. Nor is a dog who freezes near people or other dogs and then lunges. That needs assessing rather than training. Speak to a qualified behaviour professional who works with reward-based methods. Get help now if your dog has growled at, snapped at or bitten anybody. Book a veterinary examination if the freezing started suddenly. The same applies if your dog seems stiff, reluctant to move on, or limps after holding the position. Sudden behaviour change warrants one, and pain frequently presents as a change in behaviour rather than as obvious lameness. Chasing livestock or ground-nesting birds is a legal and welfare problem as well as a training one.
What to expect
Owners of pointing breeds usually describe months, and a dog who still points at 3 years old and simply releases when asked. The pointing is not going away, and it does not need to.
Nobody can promise you a pointer who walks past a pheasant. A reliable release, a long line and somewhere legal to use the nose are what get closest.
If the walk has several problems stacked on it, the Assessment will name the pattern underneath. It is free, takes about 3 minutes, and asks for no email address.
Today's version, in one line: long line on, 10 easy releases paid with a thrown toy, and 5 minutes of find it in the grass.