need advice on retrieves

I worked with a female lab named Tessy when she was about 8 months old. I had her retreiving, marking, doing doubles. Also introduced her to birds and retreiving those. She is now 18 months old and her owner brought her back. I have not worked with her for the past ten months. Tessy now will not fetch. On dummies she will either ignor them or run past them and fix her attention on something else. With birds she will go get them but claim them for herself, either laying down and try to eat them or run off with them.
Ok guys, any quick fixes to get her back on the right track?

lack of interest – my only thoughts are lost motivation resulting from lack of reward ? inadequate praise ? negative reinforcement ?

claiming for herself – while initially training my dog on fetch, we always worked together really well. I was unaware that for several weeks following our initial training… my kids we’re playing “keep away” with him I had to spend time reworking him back to where we left off.

Suggestion would be to train the trainer ? (Not train you but perhaps the owner ? Good luck & enjoy !

lack of interest – my only thoughts are lost motivation resulting from lack of reward ? inadequate praise ? negative reinforcement ?

claiming for herself – while initially training my dog on fetch, we always worked together really well. I was unaware that for several weeks following our initial training… my kids we’re playing “keep away” with him I had to spend time reworking him back to where we left off.

Suggestion would be to train the trainer ? (Not train you but perhaps the owner ? Good luck & enjoy !

You need to first find out what the owner did with her from the time she was 8 months old until today. They did something drastically wrong in my eyes…RR

Nothing will ruin a good house dog worse than making it fetch birds. j/k

All bs aside, my 2 cents, force fetching is your only option!

Nothing will ruin a good house dog worse than making it fetch birds. j/k

All bs aside, my 2 cents, force fetching is your only option!

Don,

How was the dog force was broke? If you toe hitch or ear pinch the dog is refusing to retrieve? That seems odd for a lab, usually once they get it they are good to go unless someone stimulated them out of retrieving.

My guess is you are dealing with a refusal / incorrectly applied stimulation problem and the dog has been allowed or in advertently forced to get away with the refusal to retrieve.

Has the dog seen a lot of E collar? Even an ill timed bark collar can really turn a dog off???

If the owner is using the collar to enforce the “here” or call back command it can really turn into a bad deal.

Here’s something that may work…. try a little competition. Put out a few high energy dogs on a chain gang, work them thru a few good time drills, maybe even involve a few live bird retrieves. Make her sit on the chain and watch all the good times going on.

Put her away without any retrieve work or emotion on you’re part, pretty much ignore her. Repeat the same drill a few hours later, again putting her away again with no work. Just the chain gang to watch then back into the crate, the key here is in between each training session make sure you crate her, no running or playing, keep her crated up. Eventually when she is going bonkers try to take her thru a drill, but make her get you’re attention by executing the drill correctly.

This is similar to something I have seen work pretty well on a guy who was big into all age field trial dogs. He would work his dogs on a regular schedule, then 4 days before a big trial it was in the crate, onto a chain to eat, watch some other dogs work, then back into the crate. By the fifth day the dogs went from hard driving dogs to raving bird lunatics.

I kinda doubt that will really completely solve you’re problems though… I think you will have to go back to the force fetch. But once you go there she should fall back in place really quickly. Dogs usually will not forget that which they once learned.

Keep us posted, it’s always fun to read how other people get the wheels back on the wagon.

Don,

How was the dog force was broke? If you toe hitch or ear pinch the dog is refusing to retrieve? That seems odd for a lab, usually once they get it they are good to go unless someone stimulated them out of retrieving.

My guess is you are dealing with a refusal / incorrectly applied stimulation problem and the dog has been allowed or in advertently forced to get away with the refusal to retrieve.

Has the dog seen a lot of E collar? Even an ill timed bark collar can really turn a dog off???

If the owner is using the collar to enforce the “here” or call back command it can really turn into a bad deal.

Here’s something that may work…. try a little competition. Put out a few high energy dogs on a chain gang, work them thru a few good time drills, maybe even involve a few live bird retrieves. Make her sit on the chain and watch all the good times going on.

Put her away without any retrieve work or emotion on you’re part, pretty much ignore her. Repeat the same drill a few hours later, again putting her away again with no work. Just the chain gang to watch then back into the crate, the key here is in between each training session make sure you crate her, no running or playing, keep her crated up. Eventually when she is going bonkers try to take her thru a drill, but make her get you’re attention by executing the drill correctly.

This is similar to something I have seen work pretty well on a guy who was big into all age field trial dogs. He would work his dogs on a regular schedule, then 4 days before a big trial it was in the crate, onto a chain to eat, watch some other dogs work, then back into the crate. By the fifth day the dogs went from hard driving dogs to raving bird lunatics.

I kinda doubt that will really completely solve you’re problems though… I think you will have to go back to the force fetch. But once you go there she should fall back in place really quickly. Dogs usually will not forget that which they once learned.

Keep us posted, it’s always fun to read how other people get the wheels back on the wagon.