Struggling with retrieve

[weimy]

Hi any one got any tips about getting a 9 month old to bring a dummy back? In the house she brings stuff back fine and holds it untill I ask her to give but out doors she drops it before she gets back to me and gives up after two goes.

[Slubberdegullion]

Kate, mmm yeeeeees, or maybe not . Thank GOD there is no one living next door atm.

Minimu, ok will persist with legs a kimbo treating and hold off on the sit.

What is rally o?

I am so undecided about gun dog training, is that what I would need to do to get into trails? I know she would love it but the books, gah...they sound like such a bunch of [blanks], all the scruffing and shouting. Can't be doing with that. Am a bit worried about paying for a course and then finding the methods weren't really in keeping with the whole positive training thing.

What to do?

[minimu1]

To get a close present. Sit on the edge of a chair with your legs open(!) hold a treat quite high up on your chest (obviously body shape plays a part in this. Call the dog and get the dog to come right in between your legs and reach for the treat on your chest/stomach. Do not ask for a sit at this stage just get the dog used to the position. Do this for several days//week.

When they can do this happily lean against a wall with you legs slightly bent and legs open and call the dog in close to your knees so their head is very close to your body again.

Very soon you can do this just standing up and ask for the sit

I would teach the present without the dummy and then add the dummy when they are happy with the present position.

Slubber what about working trials - dogs love them or rally o

[CalamityKate]

I think you should do that again and video it for everyones amusement in order to help other dog owners.

[Slubberdegullion]

Yes this is true. I was particularly captivated by her 'leave it' video with lobbing the sausages and the mad (and yes you are right) very tree huggerish dance with the scarves.

I recreated it in my back garden, by god the clicker works, but it may have been the start of my dog thinking I was a little unhinged.

[CalamityKate]

My vets are terrible for trying to flog you stuff. If it's not the nurses at the puppy party trying to sell you Pet Correctors, it's the vets looking in your dog's mouth and going "Ooh, bit of tartar" (there wasn't) "would you like to buy these Dentistix??", while producing said chews with a flourish.

I wouldn't get too despondent re:Kikopup. There's a lot of gabble about clicker trainers vs clicker users blah blah. Who cares what you call it? There are purists in every walk of life. She always strikes me as a bit hippyish - I can fully imagine her hugging a tree but she's so good at what she does I let her off.

[Slubberdegullion]

Ok

Tomorrow will work on super closeness and thigh targeting. I tried to get the clicker in there too to mark her bum going down a bit but it was all a chaotic mess of treats and noses and groins.

I also love kikopup, although one of posts scared me a bit recently. She was RIGHT UP CLOSE to the camera with her big eyes saying things like "if you use the word command you are not clicker training and if you say ah-ah you are not clicker trIning". I felt a bit despondent after watching it. A big ole FAIL clicker trainer

Puppy party sounds like madness. My one and only class had a grizzly trainer who smoked the entire time and dragged dog about a bit AND I lost £5 out of my pocket. It was shit.

[CalamityKate]

I went to a dreadful "Puppy Party" at the local vet's when Dog was a baby. It was run by the vet nurses. Among other things, they encouraged us to let all the puppies offlead (there were about 6 of us there IIRC) and then promptly produced one of those Pet Corrector Aerosol sprays, and demonstrated how to "break them up" if they got too boisterous (they weren't).

Of course the puppies scattered, when they'd been in the middle of a perfectly polite greeting session. Way to teach them to fear other dogs

[CalamityKate]

Slubber... hmm. Thinking... as far as I remember, when I taught the present her bum sort of lowered automatically as her head came up high in front of me for the treat...

You probably need to work for longer on her actually getting REALLY close to you. Some people aim to get the dog to target their thighs with its chest, so it's really tucked in. If he's getting really tucked in with his head nice and high, his bum should lower, so perhaps you could shape that, so he goes lower and lower...

Can't find any related Youtube vids, but on a related note, have you ever looked at Kikopup's training videos? She is AWESOME - love her.

[fruitshootsandheaves]

My spaniel isn't much good at obedience, but only because I haven't trained him

He did however run enthusiastically into a ditch for his ball the other day and then came back with a fresh pheasant!

We ate it for lunch!

[Slubberdegullion]

Ok thanks. Sounds that you got lucky and found a good trainer. We only went to one puppy class, once was enough. Awful awful. Rather put me off classes tbh.

Saying that I just had a go at your 'present' method. All going well. Dog (unsurprising) more than happy to stick a nose into my groinal regions (me standing and sitting) to get treat. This all good.

Then I tried to add the sit.

Dog IMMEDIATELY leaps backwards to give me specatcular sit. Ta Daaaaaaa. Look at ME! I SIT!

But she's moved right away from my groin. So I lure her in again and try to angle the treat and my groin to get her to put her backside on the floor.

Nope, nadda.

It all went hopelessly wrong and now I have an indecent moist patch (from slobbering dog) on the front of my jeans and my dog thinks I'm a mentalist.



Any good you tube videos of how to do it?

[CalamityKate]

Nope. Went to the lady years ago with my old Lurcher, just for puppy classes and got interested in Comp Obedience. The lady who does the puppy classes also competes and does Comp Ob classes so I joined those when we grew out of puppy classes. He was really good at it but we never got round to any shows.

Years later when I got my present dog(s) I went back - the lady now does it with her daughter who also competes (she was only small when I first went).

I have no idea whether they have any actual qualifications - when I first went years ago I didn't have a clue about qualifications. I just found her in the yellow pages. I went back because I knew she was good, and there aren't that many Comp Ob classes round here.

The thing is, someone could be a fantastic handler/trainer/competitor and never have bothered getting any qualifications - whereas there ARE people who are qualified but couldn't train Ivy up a wall. So you have to shop around a bit. The APDT is a good place to start though :)

[Slubberdegullion]

good.

Did you find your class through the...oh hell I can never remember what order the letters go in.. APDT ( ? ) website?

[CalamityKate]

My trainer encourages clicker use - TBH I think most do nowadays.

There isn't any running about. I mean, you jump about a bit when you're playing with the dog as a reward, but the obedience exercises themselves don't involve running. Apart from if you get high up in competition and do fast pace heelwork, but that's not even a jog.

If there was running about involved, I wouldn't do it. I break into a sweat getting up off a chair.

[weimy]

I have been using a whistle, I'm not sure if I could cope with that and a whistle lol.

I go to obedience classes but I am always the only person with a weimy there and they are so demanding, but they love agility and retrieval :)

[Slubberdegullion]

Sounds fun. My dog LOVES the clicker too. Can you take your clicker to your class or do you just practice the stuff at home with it?

I don't like running about. There isn't any running about is there?

[CalamityKate]

I'm not a professional - I am a very enthusiastic and reasonably experienced amateur

I do go to a Competitive Obedience class which is brilliant, but I also read and read and read about various methods of teaching stuff, and then practise on my own dogs.
I'm what you might call evangelical about clicker training. It's just that my dog HATES any sort of hands-on training - even the mildest "That's where I want you" physical help makes her sulk as if she's been beaten - and the difference between an exercise/trick/behaviour that's been taught with a clicker and one taught "traditionally" is phenomenal.

I think obedience is great fun, yes. It depends what sort of thing you like. It's not as obviously "Whoohoo" fun as say, Agility or Flyball, inasmuch as a dog doing Obedience isn't rushing about barking madly - which is what I think puts some people off. But the training is massively reward/fun based, even if the exercises themselves look very serious.

I like it :)

[Slubberdegullion]

Kate, are you self taught, or did you go to classes or are you a professional?

Is obedience fun?

I'm trying to decide what if anything 'extra' to do with my dog. The gun dog training thing seems like the obvious avenue but I'm so put off by the gun dog training books.

[CalamityKate]

Do you use a clicker?

If so, it makes things far easier. They do need to understand that the click ends the behaviour though - ie when they hear the click, they immediately release the article in expectation of the treat.

You'll probably be surprised how quickly you progress - I always think these things sound as if they take forever but they don't, really - especially if you do the odd few mins here and there. While you're waiting for the kettle to boil and so on :)

[weimy]

Calamity I am trying to do the gun dog thing but they are def not supposed to mouth so I will try that. TBH it is the older girl that mouths more.

[CalamityKate]

I'd say go back to basics Weimy. Do you use a clicker? As outlined above, I'd start off just asking the dog to hold the article for half a second, then working up REALLY gradually so that it never occurs to them to mouth.

But if you're talking training gundogs, ignore me because I wouldn't have the first clue about training gundogs!

[CalamityKate]

Yes Slubber. I did. Because in Competitive Obedience, you need to do a recall (leave the dog, halt, turn and face dog, call dog, dog comes into present position, straight and central, then send dog to heel position).

[weimy]

slubber ebay is really good for dog training stuff.

mine mouth retrieval stuff, is there any way to stop that?

[Slubberdegullion]

Ok so with the come or fore cue, you do that without the dog holding something in it's mouth first?

[CalamityKate]

You can get various size dumbbells (they're bright orange) from PAH. I look at my dog's first tiny dumbbell with the sort of misty eyes usually reserved for baby's first bootees

[CalamityKate]

Oh, and (sorry lol) one of the reasons I like using a clicker and shaping the "hold" so much, is that you will start off with the dog holding the article for a FRACTION of a second and build up the time in tiny increments - using this method, dogs tend not to get into the habit of mouthing the article.

Believe me I'm no expert (we're just starting out in competition - done 2 so far) but one thing I will say is that my dog has NEVER mouthed a retrieve article - even if I send her after different things.

BTW - I didn't take a dumbbell out in public (I do a bit of training on the local field) until I was fairly sure she wasn't going to make me look a prat