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Playing ‘keep away’
At some point during the
first year it is not uncommon for a young dog to
become reluctant to return with and/or present the
dummy. This may occur in the very young pup, or
perhaps more often, it will arise as the puppy
becomes more independent.
The puppy who dodges away or ‘makes off’ with the
dummy, may be attempting to involve the handler in a
game of chase. Or he may genuinely wish to keep
the dummy for himself. Distinguishing between this
puppyish wish to involve you in play, and the dog
who is determined to keep the dummy for himself is
not always easy for the fairly inexperienced
handler.
Returning with the dummy
Before you can take delivery of the dummy, you first
need your dog to come willingly back with it. One
way of improving your chances of a direct return are
to limit the dog’s options
by using a retrieving corridor or natural opening in
a barrier to channel the dog in to you. Many puppies
need this kind of ‘channelling’ to get a good
retrieve going. So much so, that some serious
trainers do all their early retrieve training in a
dedicated long, narrow, fenced area. This stage
doesn’t last for ever, and the more often you get a
good return, even a manipulated one in the early
days, the sooner the dog will have a good retrieving
habit. Gaps in a hedge, pathways between buildings,
field gateways, even the back door into your garden,
etc can all be used to good effect.
Once the dog has ‘picked up’
don’t just stand there waiting, set off in the
opposite direction. Make him responsible for coming
to you, never the other way around. Walking, even
running, away from the dog triggers his response to
chase or follow you. Occasionally, this can be
quite a protracted process with the dog staying just
out of reach. In this case you must feign complete
indifference to the dog and keep walking away
until he comes right up to you. If he overshoots
you, dodging off yet again, instantly turn and march
off in the opposite direction.
Sometimes, especially if the dog is very keen to
keep the dummy, this ‘walking away’ procedure can go
on for a very long time indeed. You will need to be
determined and not give up after a few minutes.
This kind of training is best undertaken in a wide
open space, a large field or meadow , unfamiliar to
the dog, is ideal. The younger he is, the less keen
he will be to be separated from you by too great a
distance or for too long. This need to be with you
is your trump card, and so this training is best
carried out whilst the puppy is still fairly young
and not too independent.
Approaching the handler
Once the dog has returned with the dummy, you now
need him to come close enough so that he can be
encouraged to ‘offer’ it to you. Getting the dog to
come right into your body and make contact with you
should be encouraged. Even if this means him
jumping up and putting his paws on you.
Sometimes the handler is unknowingly intimidating to
the dog. This may be because he or she is worrying
about the whole exercise and so is tensing up and
posing an aggressive posture towards the dog. Dogs
are very sensitive to body language. It may be that
the dog associates approaching the handler with a
previous punishment, however mild, when carrying
something. Making yourself small, crouching down,
even lying down, and averting your face slightly (a
stare is a threat to a dog) can all help put your
dog at ease and get him right in close to you.
If the dog tends to overshoot you or barge you as he
comes in, put your back up against a hedge, fence or
wall. It is surprising how quickly he will find his
‘brakes’ rather than bump or scratch his nose.
The delivery
Some dogs come back
willingly but persistently spit out the dummy when
they get close and then lose interest in it. This
may be because the handler has inadvertently
rewarded the dog for doing so in the past, or it may
just be a habit that has developed. Offering food
in exchange for the retrieve without following the
correct procedure for doing so can cause spitting
out of the dummy, as can throwing another retrieve
before taking delivery of the first. Sometimes
kicking the dropped dummy a few feet along the
ground ‘brings it to life’ enough to encourage the
dog to pick it up again. Sometimes the dog will
quickly spit it out again each time you do this.
There are as many different reactions as there are
dogs, and it is always a judgment call as to how
long to persist in a particular course of action,
and when to change your approach. But at some
point it may be time to ‘call it a day’ with
attempts to gain a natural delivery, and move on to
the ‘trained retrieve’
The trained retrieve
If your dog is over seven months old, and has a
really enthusiastic outrun (chase) and pick up,
after every dummy, you can teach him a trained
retrieve. If the whole ‘walking away’ procedure is
dragging on for weeks rather than days, and the
amount of time you are walking away for is not
significantly diminishing, or if the dog has been
spitting out the dummy at your feet for weeks then
there is no real benefit in delaying any longer. It
is time for a trained retrieve.
The trained retrieve simply means that the dog is
taught the individual components of the retrieve
that are missing. These skills are ‘back-chained’
ie taught in reverse. The dog must be first taught
to hold a dummy in his mouth until commanded to
release it. He must then be taught walk towards you
with the dummy he is holding before giving it to
you. This behaviour once well established, is
re-attached to the whole retrieving ‘experience’ in
confined conditions and finally taken back out to
‘the field’
There are two common ways in which a trained hold is
taught. The first, more favoured by traditional
gundog trainers, involves physically placing a dummy
in the dog’s mouth, praising as he holds. The
second, more favoured by obedience trainers, is the
clicker delivery. With this technique the dog is
taught to pick up the dummy, and hold it, of his own
free will.
I
recommend the clicker delivery unless you can get a
professional or very experienced gundog trainer to
help you with his own method. This is because a
forced hold can actually put the dog off ‘picking
the dummy up’ and make your problems even worse.
A dog which drops the retrieve at your feet is a
nuisance. A dog which won't pick a retrieve is
no use in the field at all. A clicker
delivery, results in a dog that takes pleasure in
picking up any dummy on command, and can be useful
when the dog accidentally drops the dummy as he can
simply be asked to pick it up again at any time.
Passion first, delivery second
Not many traditional gundog trainers use a clicker
retrieve, partly because it uses food, and
food used incorrectly for retrieving causes the dog
to spit out the dummy, and partly because
clickers have long been associated with training
parlour tricks.
However, the clicker retrieve (and clicker training
generally) is a well proven and very effective
technique and has been used by thousands of
obedience trainers for many years now. It can even
be used to teach a reliable retrieve in dogs which
are not natural retrievers. It is based on the
sound science of learning theory, and is a
fairly straightforward procedure provided you follow
the instructions carefully.
Many obedience trainers teach the trained hold
before allowing the dog to retrieve at all.
We do not recommend that you do this with your
gundog. The purely backchained retrieve is an
effective method for ring based sports but in gundog
training it is wise to develop the dog’s retrieving
instincts to their maximum before instilling the
steadiness implicit in the trained retrieve.
We need our gundogs to have an intense passion and
drive for retrieving perhaps unparalleled in any
other dog sport. Without this passion they are
unlikely to be able to cope with the physical and
mental challenges they will meet in the field.
Passion can be crushed by too much early steadiness.
Getting a good delivery takes time so don't despair.
Even the best trainers sometimes have problems in
this respect and some dogs can be more difficult
than others. |
