Dumbell

[Lablover]

I continue add to my training log. I was going to post a short version of force retrieve, but as it has so many up in arms, I hesitate to do so.

[dlmckay]

I tried with the FR method but with the manual mouth opening... she hated it. It got to the stage where she would clamp her mouth tighter and tighter against my fingers opening her mouth and then she just started to move her head away whenever the dumbell came out.

So I tried clicker for the first time ever and have managed to undo the hatred aimed at the DB and now she picks her ears up because she knows we're having a game.

So far, we've been able to click for nose touches, but I've not been able to progress to her picking it up. She isn't an obvious dog, so maybe I'm missing those tiny increments that mean she's moving on... she starts to whine in frustration and then buggers off to her bed.

Any tips? She's GSD x BC?

[Billand]

I clicker trained/back chained the retrieve. Very similar to what most people have done. This worked for one of my dogs but I came across a problem with 1 of my other dogs. I still could not get her to pick up the DB and bring it back to me. If I dropped the DB at my feet she would not pick it up, only touch it or if i threw it she would run out and touch it or pick it up, drop it and then come back to me for a treat. So I had to change my approach.

I have one dog who is a very reliable retriever so I took him and Jazz the dog I was trying to teach the retrieve to, 2 DB, a clicker and lots of treats. Every time I threw the 2 DB, both dogs would run out to them but only one, Guy, would bring one back. When he gave it to me I would click/treat and make a huge fuss of him. This eventually woke the little green monster up in Jazz. It only took her 2 training sessions to figure out that Guy was getting a click/treat/praise because he brought the DB to me. She now brings it back every time.

This has only worked for me because I have 4 collies that tend to get a bit jealous of each other - you should hear the noise coming from my place when I am training in the backyard - you wouldn't want to be my neighbour!

Cheers.