Natural History

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Labrador retrieving, natural retrievers, retrievers, retrieving | 6 Comments

6 Responses

1. on December 9, 2009 at 1:48 am Sherlock and Noah

   How do you train this? I just started doing therapy work with Noah. He is helping out in the physical therapy department of a senior assisted living facility and today the residents were throwing a ball for him to retrieve. He wasn’t very interested in the ball because of all the people, sights and smells. Usually when we play fetch, he will run right back to me and drop the ball or toy next to me. But half of the time when I reach for it, he snatches it and thinks it’s a game, but then drops it again because he wants me to throw it.

   
   
   • on December 9, 2009 at 1:55 am retrieverman

     The interesting thing is these puppies are naturally retrieving to hand. It can be bred for.

     To train for it, there is a good book called The Clicked Retriever: http://www.dogwise.com/ItemDetails.cfm?ID=dtb862

     There is another method (used in working retrievers), but my guess is you don’t want to try it.

     
     
2. on December 9, 2009 at 8:05 pm labpack

   All the working retrievers I know of have never been trained with “the other method” you mean – neither with clicker…

   
   
   • on December 10, 2009 at 12:03 am retrieverman

     The other method is this: http://www.gundogsonline.com/Article/Force-Fetch-Issues-Page1.htm

     The reason why I suggested that she do the clicked retrieve is because she’s into this sort of training.

     
     
3. on December 10, 2009 at 9:56 am labpack

   Retrievernan, how would you explain the fundamental differences in gundog training between US and Europe? Why the norm to FF and E-collar? Even for non-competitive dogs? Are the characters of the dogs lacking the trademark of the breed “willingness to please”? Or something else?

   I am really interested to know as I never – in some 20+ years – had to use any of the above force methods in training my dogs.

   
   
   • on December 10, 2009 at 12:43 pm retrieverman

     It’s mainly because we’ve come to expect these things from our dogs. It’s generally believed that a retriever can never be “finished” unless it’s been e-collared or force-fetched. The dogs have to run in lines, and that is very hard to train without the use of some kind of remote correction device.

     Check out Robert Milner’s site for some analysis. This is a good article: http://www.fetchpup.com/training/fundamentals.php

     I think there is a very different attitude toward training in the US (just in general) than there is in Europe.

     
     

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