[wp_ad_camp_2]It does not matter how good your dog is at finding game if he will not bring it back.
And having brought it back he needs to complete the process and hand it over!
Achieving this happy state of affairs is not always straightforward.
It goes without saying the an excellent recall is a necessary pre-requisite for a retriever.
But sometimes a dog that recalls flawlessly in all other circumstances, will start to play ‘keep away’ when it has a retrieve in its mouth.
With a young puppy this is often just an attempt to involve you in a game of chase, so do not be caught out by that little ruse. Always move away from rather than towards, your young retriever if he shows any sign of hesitation in approaching you.
Other dogs however are possesive over the retrieve and want to keep it for themselves. This can be a little trickier to deal with. Sometimes this possessiveness only appears when the transition is made from dummies to game, or when more interesting (furry for example) dummies are introduced.
Retrieving corridors
One way of improving your chances of a direct return are to limit the dog’s options by using a retrieving corridor or natural opening in a barrier to ‘channel’ the dog in to you.
Many puppies benefit from this kind of ‘channelling’ to get a good retrieve going.
So much so, that some serious trainers do all their early retrieve training in a dedicated long, narrow, fenced area.
This stage doesn’t last for ever, and the more often you get a good return, even a manipulated one in the early days, the sooner the dog will have a good retrieving habit.
Gaps in a hedge, pathways between buildings, field gateways, even the back door into your garden, etc can all be used to good effect.
It is not a bad idea to return to the retrieving corridor concept with first cold game retrieves, especially if your dog shows any signs at all of reluctance to part with his prize.
The long walk about!
If the dog shows reluctance to return out in the open, you need to get walking! Once the dog has ‘picked up’ don’t just stand there waiting, set off briskly in the opposite direction.
Make him responsible for coming to you, never the other way around.
Walking, even running, away from the dog helps to trigger his response to chase or follow you. Occasionally, this can be quite a protracted process with the dog staying just out of reach. In this case you must feign complete indifference to the dog and keep walking away until he comes right up to you. If he overshoots you, dodging off yet again, instantly turn and march off in the opposite direction.
Play it really cool and give the dog the impression you could not care less about the retrieve. Do not put your hands near the dog, do not stoop to reach the dummy, or give any impression that you have any interest in it whatsoever for several minutes. Just keep walking away from the dog until he falls into step behind you and you begin to sense that he is just a little tired of holding this thing in his mouth.
Then very calmly turn and tell the dog to sit. Take the retrieve from him gently and give him some praise then immediately throw him another retrieve.
This can be very difficult to bring yourself to do when you have just spent forever getting the last one back. But if you whisk it away now, your risk making the dog feel ‘punished’ for handing it over. He needs a high value reward for giving you back the dummy and in this case we know the retrieve has a high value for him.
What if he won’t let go?
If the dog will not give up his precious parcel, walk him on at heel with it in his mouth for a while and then try again. Eventually he will get bored of carrying it around. Now is your chance to calmly make your move and take the delivery as if nothing annoying had ever happened.
If you find yourself in this situation on more than a couple of occasions, or if your ‘walk abouts’ drag on for half an hour and you are not seeing any improvement after a few days, then you might want to consider teaching your dog a ‘trained retrieve’.
The trained retrieve will solve your problems but it takes a couple of weeks or more to complete and during that time you won’t be able to retrieve with the dog at all. Its a job for the summer if the above techniques have not helped you.
How about you? Have you overcome a ‘keep away’ problem? Let us know what worked for you!
If you enjoy my articles, you might like my new book: The Happy Puppy Handbook
my puppy drops the ball 4ft from me she is 7months old tried every thin. just not working
Hi Paul, you need the clicker retrieve http://totallygundogs.com/clicker-trained-retrieve/
Our cocker, Alice, retrievers the half size dummy really well, even given blind retrieves. She drops the dummy at my feet rather than to hand, does this really matter? She is five months..
If you want to work her Nigel, you’ll need to fix this at some point, have a look at the clicker retrieve training articles
Thank you Pippa, I will.
18 month female black lab retrieves to hand on land, but wants to swim around with dummy and avoid handler. Any suggestions?
Thank you for the advise. I have a 4 month old GSP and he is very possessive once he retrieves. I am a novice trainer and started playing with him at an early age using a wing on a fishing pole. If I allow him to get ahold of the wing, he clamps down and holds on very tightly and will try to avoid me. I made the mistake early of forcing it from his jaws for safety reasons. Obviously this has made the condition worse. I limited his exposure to frozen wings because of his obsessive possesivness. I will try your technique with a canvas bumper before force retrieving and let you know how our sessions go.
Ok, long winded story/question here – I have a 2 year old boykin spaniel. She recalls with great enthusiasm, everytime, except with retrieves. She is steady to sit and stay and will not break until sent off to retrieve the dummy, but wants to keep the dummy for herself once she has it in her mouth. I have done some hallway work, but it hasnt correlated to recall with retrieve in the field. I recently built a dog stand for use as a platform for her to sit on in the marsh and she enjoys being asked to jump up and sit on the platform with the command “place”. Yesterday, after a frustrating session in the field where she ran off with the dummy and did not want to recall to me with the dummy, I walked away from her until she finally came to me (several minutes later, lots of pleading with recall whistle, changing walking direction many times; as suggested here) I then threw a short dummy toss and then let her walk next to me while carrying the dummy as we headed back out of the field. After 100 feet or so of walking, I made her sit, took the dummy, ended the session and brought her home. After dinner I had some leftover meat and decided to take her in the backyard and try something. She knew I had several pieces of meat in a cup with me. I asked her to jump and sit on the platform with the “place” command and praised her heartily. I stood next to the platform, tossed the dummy, sent her after it, and once she had it in her mouth I asked her to “place” on the platform. She jumped up on the platform, dummy in mouth, and traded the dummy for a piece of meat. I left the dummy on the platform while I praised her and then repeated the drill. I got her to repeat this 5 more times and decided not to push it any farther and ended with lots and lots of praise. It seems she enjoys getting praised for “placing” and doesnt realize she is actually “re-calling” to me and finishing the retrieve. Question: In your opinion, should I continue this platform drill to help work on recall with the retrieve, or will I develop a crutch with the platform that will cause problems when I dont have the platform with me? Thanks for any insight you may have.
Hi Eli, personally I would not use the platform. I think it is an added complication and a good delivery is achievable without it. Pippa
Thanks for your reply. I have worked with a couple of professionals, but she doesn’t exhibit the messing about with the dummy in their company. Although one did see her at a test recently so knows of the issue. I think a trained delivery might be the way forward. I have experimented with clicker training, mostly for shaping behaviours like heel work, recall, stop whistle etc. I didn’t want to use it for the retrieve and delivery given the risk of dropping the dummy etc, but I have read through your material and may give it a go. The root problem is that she doesn’t really retrieve for me, she has a slightly independent nature and it has taken me ages to get a working partnership with her. The last bit to get right is getting her excited to give ME the dummy. If I get that right perhaps we can rid ourselves of the ‘test-wise’ issue.
Hi Pippa, I am a novice handler and have a 2 year 10 month old Labrador bitch which had a great first season on game. She is steady in walked up situations, has a reliable recall and retrieves game to hand without a problem. One issue i had last year was when working in groups of dogs with dummies (club training evenings, working tests etc) she started to play with the dummies and shake them instead of delivering to hand. I thought the problem was sorted (went back to basics for a few months), but now after running a few working tests she is back to her old habits. She won’t do this behaviour group training or when training alone, just when i can’t scold her (in tests)! A really frustrating problem. I wanted to try trialling her this year, but if she is test-wise I am not sure what to do.
Hi James
Sorry to hear you are having problems with your dog. Becoming ‘test-wise’ can be tricky to deal with as it is so hard to simulate genuine test conditions.
My gut feeling is that a trained delivery might resolve your problem, but I am not a competitor and would be reluctant to advise you.
Have you talked to a professional trainer about the problem? Is there anything you do in training with regard to the delivery that you are unable to do in the test situation? If so, that might be the key to your troubles.
Pippa
Hi Steve, your spaniel is very young yet, you have plenty of time. 🙂 What have you tried so far?
I have exactly the same problem with my 6 month old springer spaniel. I had no retrieving problems with my first gundog, a cocker spaniel. Not sure how best to tackle it.
I have been reading your clicker retrieve articles with great joy as was beginning to dispair of my 20month old Labrador, Sam, who has a wonderful outward run on a retrieve but has taken to collecting the dummy and then running off with it and sitting out of reach whilst chewing the toggle end.
When this happens in the garden I just ignore him and go inside and he does come to the back door (eventually) but sometimes only after a couple of minutes of chewing!! He has already demolished one dummy and I want to nip this bad habit in the bud.
When are you planning on publishing “step 3 and 4”?
We have had many problems with Sam, all caused by our lack of experience in dog training (he is our first dog) and although I have done general obediance training with him, his gun dog training only started 3 months ago. I only wish I had started gun dog training when he was young. His recall is awful and I don’t seem to be able to get him to want to work with me. He always seems to be battling against me. I am committed to working with him to try and resolve all his issues – bless him. I have found the articles on your site very informative so thank you very much!
After a stressful training session I feel much more positive now!
Hi Claire, glad you have found the articles helpful. Part three comes out this week. Pippa