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At the moment I am
practicing up against a wall or fence as Lottie has
a tendency to swing her bottom out sideways as she
sits and the barrier helps keep her straight.
We do a session before
each of her three meals - each session lasts only a
couple of minutes. Lottie enjoys the sessions, and
is quite excited to see her lead
Retrieving
Lottie is still very
possessive of the retrieve and although I can get a
delivery to hand in a hallway or corridor, outdoors
is more of a problem. Her marking seems naturally
good and she will fly out fast and accurately, make
a nice pick up and return to within about five yards
of me.
I have to use quite a
bit of trickery (running away, lying down, rolling
further away) to get her any closer. Usually, once a
pup realises that returning the dummy result in
another throw, they begin to come in willingly.
With Lottie however,
this evasive phase is persisting a little longer
than normal and she is becoming more rather than
less evasive.
She is very determined
to hang on to the dummy and I spend a lot of time
stroking and praising her before finally rolling it
out of her mouth.
I don’t use her recall
whistle during the retrieve, having tried this on
one occasion with no success and I do not want to
rehearse her ignoring the whistle.
What I would like, is the
opportunity to show Lottie that the ‘retrieving
game’ she enjoys so much, doesn’t end if she comes
right in to me and hands over the dummy, and with
this in mind have been getting her used to wearing a
check cord.
In America, retriever trainers make far more use of
check cords than we do in this country and will
gently reel a puppy in with the retrieve if it is
playing ‘keep away’. I have been talking to some
experienced US chesapeake trainers about different ways to approach
Lottie’s delivery. Several UK trainers have told me
that they are reluctant to use a check cord during a
retrieve because it may cause the pup to start
dropping the dummy. However, the US trainers I have
discussed this with use them on a regular basis and
feel this is fairly unlikely and if it does happen
will probably be temporary. They have advised me -
if I use a check cord - to keep gently reeling the pup in,
even if she does drop the dummy. Her grip will be a
little firmer the next time. |
