The beginning of May, I wrote about Freighter “chasing butterflies”.  That was my description of his retrieving which was more like…run super fast to the bumper…pick it up…and then run all around the field.  Ah puppies!

Hsin-Yi  of Honey the Great Dane wanted to know:

what do you do when Freighter is “chasing butterflies” and he drops the bumper? or does he always keep in his mouth? It would be great if he still held onto it come what may and eventually returned to you because at least you wouldn’t have to worry about going to find it/pick it up. My biggest problem with Honey retrieving things is that if she gets distracted, she will just open your mouth and drop it. On the other hand, to be fair, she is not a “retriever breed”!

Great questions.  Yes, having a retriever breed helps because you hope the urge or drive to retrieve is part of the dog’s genetics.  But the puppy isn’t just born with all of the skills a retriever needs.  They have to be helped to get there.

With Thunder and Storm, we did not work with a trainer when they were very young.  In fact, we had no thought to run hunt tests until Thunder was 16 months old.  He had basic gun dog training which was great because it involved flushing birds in the field.  However, that was in preparation for hunting and not so much for hunt testing.  He missed out learning some basic skills when he was young which is the best time to teach them.  To this day, we still work with him on his holding the birds.  It is something that has always been an issue for him at tests and I think it is partly because he was not put through formal retriever basics as a puppy.

Thunder 7 months Old

We are doing things a bit differently with Freighter.  Our training so far has mostly been to get him wild to retrieve.  Right now, as long as he is quick to the bumper, we are not putting pressure on him about the return.  However, shortly that will change when he goes for more formal training.

Freighter Off To Fetch

During formal training, in addition to “here” which he is already working on, Freighter will also learn “fetch” and “hold”.  These are all taught almost as obedience, separate from the retrieve at first and then eventually put together with the retrieve.

Pick It Up Freighter

Toward the end of this month, we will be sending Freighter to a professional trainer to learn these skills.  Once he is through the retriever basics, hopefully he will be less inclined to chase butterflies.    Because we hope to run him in hunt tests, we will be following more of a set training program where “fetch”, “hold” and “here” are just the beginning of the skills he will learn.

Looking Like A Big Dawg

I am no trainer, but for Honey or any dog wanting to learn to hang on to the object that they are asked to retrieve, I don’t see why you could not try to teach a “hold” command.  Start out with the dog by your side and tech “hold” separate before putting it with the retrieve.  Reward when the dog holds whatever you have asked it to hold, a toy, a bumper, whatever.  Then once that is solid, put it with the retrieve, but keep it short.  Lengthen it little by little.  Even at a retriever test, it is not uncommon to hear handlers telling their young dogs to “hold”, “hold’, “hold” on the return because the dog knows the command.  The key is to start out short and keep it positive.  (This is not exactly how Freighter will learn it, because his training will involve much more, but for fun retrieves it is one way to teach it.)

Zooming Back–Good Boy!

If anyone has tips for those wanting to teach a “hold” command, or tries it with their dog, I’d love to hear how about it.  Have a nice weekend!

We are somewhat limited with what we can set up on this water because of the way the lake is configured.  All bumpers have to be thrown into the water due to the large shrubs which ring the edge of the lake.  On this water, we can’t really train an in-and-out where we throw a bumper on land and have the dog swim and exit the water to get the bumper.  Luckily there is another pond where we can train in-and-outs as long as no one else is using that pond for fishing or to run remote-controlled boats.  When you have to use parks, you just have to adjust sometimes.

We wanted to run some marks and a blind with Storm, so we set up a double.  We used our winger with a long extension rope to throw Mark 1 and I hand threw Mark 2 over the shrubs into the water from the side of the pond.  After Storm ran the Marks, we ran her on a blind which I dropped on the bank where I was standing.

Storm did a good job on the marks.  Even though they landed in open water, there are a lot of weeds the area where Mark 2 landed which can sometimes confuse the dogs and pull them off that mark, but Storm did fine.

Next we ran Storm on the Blind, which was sort of under the arc of the Mark 2, (well as good as we could set it on this pond).  I took some video of her running this blind.  Toward the beginning of the video, you can see something white on the far bank.  Storm was fixed on it, (not sure what it was, probably some trash someone left there).  It was not the bumper, but she thought it was.  She was convinced.  Her handler had to change her mind and get her to swim in a slightly different direction to where the bumper was.  It took a couple of casts, but Storm finally gave up on the white “something”.  It was a good session.  Sometimes when you are out training, you get help from things you hadn’t even planned on. 

If the video doesn’t play try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u47KtVfkxdU

After we finished up water, we also ran a land double with a blind.  It was starting to get hot, so we called it a day.  It is nice to have Storm home.