when a puppy wont come back on a retrieve.....

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Sprig
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when a puppy wont come back on a retrieve.....

Post by Sprig » Thu Feb 10, 2011 11:42 pm

having a young puppy not come back on a retrieve seems to be a common issue many have with their young dogs on here so today as i was working with my dogs i figured i would give my 2 cents on the matter with a video of one of my pups going through this today. it was her very first day on a remote mark and i figured she might act up a little, and she did, so hopefully somebody might get a pointer or two from it to help them with this problem.
http://sprigkennels.com/article1.html

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gittrdonebritts
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Re: when a puppy wont come back on a retrieve.....

Post by gittrdonebritts » Fri Feb 11, 2011 12:15 am

great post for some of the younger trainers thanks for sharing !

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britspan
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Re: when a puppy wont come back on a retrieve.....

Post by britspan » Fri Feb 11, 2011 4:07 am

I got a question that I have asked several experienced people and I get different suggestions every time. My 9 month old brittany will retrieve a dummy (that I put away unless retrieving) in the house, but then when I go outside to a field/yard she has 100% attention on smelling/looking for birds and won't pay the dummy a bit of attention. It's like she gets extremely distracted from everything. What would you do for this situation? I thought about freezing some game birds and just having to use those outside when working on retrieving. I don't really want to FF her myself because I do not have a lot of experience with it, and I don't want to mess something up. Any thoughts/suggestions would be awesome! Thanks in advance

kensfishing
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Re: when a puppy wont come back on a retrieve.....

Post by kensfishing » Fri Feb 11, 2011 7:53 am

britspan wrote:I got a question that I have asked several experienced people and I get different suggestions every time. My 9 month old brittany will retrieve a dummy (that I put away unless retrieving) in the house, but then when I go outside to a field/yard she has 100% attention on smelling/looking for birds and won't pay the dummy a bit of attention. It's like she gets extremely distracted from everything. What would you do for this situation? I thought about freezing some game birds and just having to use those outside when working on retrieving. I don't really want to FF her myself because I do not have a lot of experience with it, and I don't want to mess something up. Any thoughts/suggestions would be awesome! Thanks in advance
If she's looking for birds, leave the dummy alone. People over do the dummy crap with a dog. They get bored with it. They are bird dogs not dummy dogs. 8)

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brad27
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Re: when a puppy wont come back on a retrieve.....

Post by brad27 » Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:25 am

I got a question that I have asked several experienced people and I get different suggestions every time. My 9 month old brittany will retrieve a dummy (that I put away unless retrieving) in the house, but then when I go outside to a field/yard she has 100% attention on smelling/looking for birds and won't pay the dummy a bit of attention. It's like she gets extremely distracted from everything. What would you do for this situation? I thought about freezing some game birds and just having to use those outside when working on retrieving. I don't really want to FF her myself because I do not have a lot of experience with it, and I don't want to mess something up. Any thoughts/suggestions would be awesome! Thanks in advance
I'm going thru the same thing with my 7 month old GSP. started her off with a plastic dummy in the yard. after about about 2 weeks of good retrieves she could have cared less about the dummy. switched to frozen birds, 2-3 sessions a week, 4 throws per session and am getting 100% back to hand retrieves. funny side note, she always brings things she finds around the yard back to her run, gloves, paint rollers, plastic tubing. I can pick up and throw one of those items and she will retrieve it all day. I guess she just doesn't like that plastic dummy. :)

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Sprig
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Re: when a puppy wont come back on a retrieve.....

Post by Sprig » Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:07 am

britspan, in short you need to find something, anything that you can get her to fetch to work on the retrieve. it doesnt really matter what it is at this point as building up that drive and desire is more important that the actuall object. sometimes trying a totally new dummy the dog hasnt seen before works, but only do a couple retrieves with her, tease her with it, put it up until the next session so she leaves it wanting more....you can also try duct taping a pheasant wing to your dummy to give it some real bird smell. i have used that on occasion with a few dogs and it has done the trick. live birds, wing clipped pigeons is the best solution, however, if you have access to them. cut the flight feathers from the wings so it cant fly and do some very short retrieves with the dog. i have used a frozen bird too and that does work but some dogs just dont like picking up a frozen bird so let it thaw out before you use it. eventually you will probably need to FF the dog but right now you just need to get her fetching so try these suggestions and hopefully they will help. let us know how it goes :)

oh, one more idea. if you have somebody that has a dog that LOVES to fetch, you can also use that dog to help. put both dogs on leashes, side by side. have the other guy throw 4-5 very short fun retrieves for his dog (right by your dog but about 10-15 feet straight out for the other dog) and hold on to your dog and have her watch. this will make her very jealous. every 5 birds or so, have the other guy hold his dog back and give your dog 1 retrieve and then have the other dog do 5 more. keep the pace up and fast. if you can get 2-3 retrieves out of your dog doing this, stop and come back the next day and do it again, repeat until you can just have your dog fetch while the other dog is just sitting there. you can use this jealousy thing to build up a dogs desire to fetch.

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britspan
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Re: when a puppy wont come back on a retrieve.....

Post by britspan » Fri Feb 11, 2011 3:56 pm

Thanks a lot for all of the suggestions. I've tried using different objects to see if she might have interest in a certain one more than the other and I get the same thing unless I bring back some birds that I shot after hunting. She has 100% concentration of where that bird is and NOTHING else matters. I'm going to get some frozen birds and start working with those. I've been told using doves for this is not good because doves do not "taste" good to the dog, is this true and if so, should I use pigeons or quail for this?

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deseeker
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Re: when a puppy wont come back on a retrieve.....

Post by deseeker » Fri Feb 11, 2011 4:07 pm

britspan wrote:Thanks a lot for all of the suggestions. I've tried using different objects to see if she might have interest in a certain one more than the other and I get the same thing unless I bring back some birds that I shot after hunting. She has 100% concentration of where that bird is and NOTHING else matters. I'm going to get some frozen birds and start working with those. I've been told using doves for this is not good because doves do not "taste" good to the dog, is this true and if so, should I use pigeons or quail for this?

As far as doves go, I don't think it is a taste issue as much as a feather issue. The feathers on doves(morning) come out in the dogs mouth very easily and some dogs don't like their mouth full of dry feathers. After about 2 or 3 retrieves there won't be many feathers left on the doves. Quail or some other game bird would probably be better as their feathers stay attached better.

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Sprig
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Re: when a puppy wont come back on a retrieve.....

Post by Sprig » Fri Feb 11, 2011 8:03 pm

deseeker wrote:
britspan wrote:Thanks a lot for all of the suggestions. I've tried using different objects to see if she might have interest in a certain one more than the other and I get the same thing unless I bring back some birds that I shot after hunting. She has 100% concentration of where that bird is and NOTHING else matters. I'm going to get some frozen birds and start working with those. I've been told using doves for this is not good because doves do not "taste" good to the dog, is this true and if so, should I use pigeons or quail for this?

As far as doves go, I don't think it is a taste issue as much as a feather issue. The feathers on doves(morning) come out in the dogs mouth very easily and some dogs don't like their mouth full of dry feathers. After about 2 or 3 retrieves there won't be many feathers left on the doves. Quail or some other game bird would probably be better as their feathers stay attached better.
i agree with this.......i think pigeons are much better than doves with this issue so you might want to try them if you cant find someother kind of gamebird.

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brad27
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Re: when a puppy wont come back on a retrieve.....

Post by brad27 » Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:11 pm

I'm using frozen pigeons right now with out any problems. Don't think I've had any, or maybe very little feathers, come off the frozen bird.

kensfishing
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Re: when a puppy wont come back on a retrieve.....

Post by kensfishing » Sat Feb 12, 2011 7:49 am

britspan wrote:Thanks a lot for all of the suggestions. I've tried using different objects to see if she might have interest in a certain one more than the other and I get the same thing unless I bring back some birds that I shot after hunting. She has 100% concentration of where that bird is and NOTHING else matters. I'm going to get some frozen birds and start working with those. I've been told using doves for this is not good because doves do not "taste" good to the dog, is this true and if so, should I use pigeons or quail for this?
You better check regs on doves. The last time I checked they are under a migratory bird laws. The feds might not like it.

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britspan
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Re: when a puppy wont come back on a retrieve.....

Post by britspan » Sun Feb 13, 2011 7:43 pm

Thanks guys.. I'll get some pigeons or quail and work with her on this issue. I did about 10 minutes of yard work this afternoon using a tennis ball and pigeon wing I had from earlier and she did very well. I used a really long lead and tossed it short distances and then pulled her back to me if she didn't come back immediately. I'll let ya'll know how it goes with the frozen quail/pigeons.

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