Gun Dog Forum

I have a 3 year old GSP bitch.

She hunted two seasons but retrieving is not reliable. She is trained using the perfect start/perfect finish program and is steady to shot and fall.

I have purchased the perfect retrieve set from perfection kennels. When starting with FF, she holds very good but when transitioning over to fetch, she is not anticipating the dummy and wont open her mouth to take it. Its almost as if she is frozen and I have to pry open her mouth.

She further retrieves dummies inside the yard, but as soon as she is in the field, she would rather run off to hunt instead of retrieving a bumper.

I do not have the means of purchasing any other materials as I am from South Africa and other materials is not available unless at a huge cost for import.

Please help.

How long have been be you been working with her on FF? And how often? The first dog I FF myself, I probably put in 6 1-or-2- minute sessions a day. I did not, by the way, build a bench as many suggest. Just worked every day. In between my house and the backyard, I have a garage. That's where we trained in the beginning. From start to finish, it probably took me three months. Others may do this faster, but it worked for me.

The other thing you should do is --presuming the seasons are reversed in South Africa and it is currently hunting season -- you ought to ditch the idea of FF to retrieve until the season is over. You can't do this if you're simultaneously taking them out in the field. Same with retrieving dummies inside the yard. Take a step back. I went from zero retrieve to a darn fine retriever over three months of the summer. Did the same thing with my second dog who completely refused to retrieve after after throwing cord on a dummy punched him in the eye. I know that can't happen, but it did.

I am presuming that the perfect retrieve set mentions that there will be times of frustration will have to be worked through. There are. Don't be perturbed. Short frequent sessions seven days a week and praise when you make progress. I will be interested in the comments of others.

Nice to have a South African poster! I spent a good deal of time there.

You might want to go on line and look at different pro trainers how to videos on u tube. Standing Stone Kennels has a forced retrieve video on utube that I like. It doesn't cost anything to watch it, and you might like his method. Other trainers have force fetch videos on there as well.

I'm with Steve007 as well---don't try training force fetch during hunting season--train it during your off season. That way you can devote 100% of the time for the dog to get it right and not about shooting birds. Good luck.