Retrieving & Field Training Talk

[RubyStar]

Rubystar, re Western Australia - my US import came second in the WA retrieving championship, a couple of months ago.

Interesting! So were you over here or someone else was handling for you? I didn't make it to the WA State trial this year as I had obedience on that weekend But I went along to several trials this year to watch and help out. Had an absolute blast when I went away for a long weekend of retrieving trials with Ruby, we camped out in my car :p Ruby just came along for a bit of practice and for the company. I learnt a lot by helping out both days. Being gun steward was daunting at first, but by the end it was great fun. I'm hoping to make it to more trials next year to help out (as I don't think trialling will be on the cards this next season ).

Also can't believe you went to the States for their competitions, that is great

[mollipop]

It's a small world, FHRP. I looked at your photos and saw that you were at the Cooplacurripa Cup.

That is where we went training weekend before last. It's a fantastic place for dogs. I was a bit nervous about snakes though.

Sounds like a great trip, Lablover. Sorry to hear you have had health issues.

You are right about the travelling. It's the worst part of retrieving weekends.

[Lablover]

Rubystar, re Western Australia - my US import came second in the WA retrieving championship, a couple of months ago.

Interesting! So were you over here or someone else was handling for you? I didn't make it to the WA State trial this year as I had obedience on that weekend But I went along to several trials this year to watch and help out. Had an absolute blast when I went away for a long weekend of retrieving trials with Ruby, we camped out in my car Ruby just came along for a bit of practice and for the company. I learnt a lot by helping out both days. Being gun steward was daunting at first, but by the end it was great fun. I'm hoping to make it to more trials next year to help out (as I don't think trialling will be on the cards this next season :p).

Also can't believe you went to the States for their competitions, that is great

Camped in the car, good for you. You are one tough cookie.

I had surgery for lung cancer at the end of July. The dog who competed in WA was kindly, veeery veery kindly, taken over and trained by GT.

I have been to the US previoulsy, watching training, weekend field trials, hunt tests, and an amateur national. Also spent 14 weeks touring when I was younger.

You sound like you would be a perfect retriever trial devotee.

[Lablover]

Sorry to hear you have had health issues.

I have been lucky so far. Thankyou. (clear margins, no lymph node involvement, chemo adjunctive therapy). Very lucky!!!!

When I first diagnosed, I nearly had a spade out, in one of our paddocks digging ME SELF a hole. ha ha.

[RubyStar]

Camped in the car, good for you. You are one tough cookie.

I had surgery for lung cancer at the end of July. The dog who competed in WA was kindly, veeery veery kindly, taken over and trained by GT.

I have been to the US previoulsy, watching training, weekend field trials, hunt tests, and an amateur national. Also spent 14 weeks touring when I was younger.

You sound like you would be a perfect retriever trial devotee.

Sounds like you're making a good recovery Hope you remain in good health

Now that is dedication to your sport!! Good for you

I'm not sure who GT is

[Lablover]

Camped in the car, good for you. You are one tough cookie.

I had surgery for lung cancer at the end of July. The dog who competed in WA was kindly, veeery veery kindly, taken over and trained by GT.

I have been to the US previoulsy, watching training, weekend field trials, hunt tests, and an amateur national. Also spent 14 weeks touring when I was younger.

You sound like you would be a perfect retriever trial devotee.

Sounds like you're making a good recovery Hope you remain in good health

Now that is dedication to your sport!! Good for you

I'm not sure who GT is

Thankyou, now back to training questions. Retrieving training is the best!!!

[RallyValley]

I have a question.

My next puppy I am going to start retrieveing training from day dot. What are some big DO NOT DO's and is there a really good resource for games to play with pups to encourage retrieveing drive?

[RubyStar]

Not a question, but just wanted to share my progress

I did a bit in the backyard on Sunday afternoon and this morning before work. Ruby was an eager little beaver and retrieved her dummy (with 2 pigeon wings attached each side) with speed, enthusiasm, and delivered sitting in front with no mouthing She isn't usually in the habit of fetching and then nicking off, but she tends to run out with confidence, picks it up, then loses her confidence on the way back to me and looks like she is worried she won't deliver correctly. So I have laid off the pressure and try to be very upbeat, which is showing in her confidence in her delivery I hope I can translate this to more exciting areas than our backyard I'm also not making them all formal, I am incorporating some "fun" throws where I encourage her to run back to me but not asking for formal delivery. I hope I'm on the right track!

I did some shaping of holding the dummy (without pigeon wings) with Millie also (who has done very little retrieving), and she was taking to it. Even with her favourite toy nearby, the squeaky ball, she made the choice herself to sit with me and do some holds of the dummy

(yes, my "retrieving" dogs play with squeaky balls and tug toys, but if was to get another gundog pup, I probably wouldn't do it... )

[FHRP]

It's a small world, FHRP. I looked at your photos and saw that you were at the Cooplacurripa Cup.

That is where we went training weekend before last. It's a fantastic place for dogs. I was a bit nervous about snakes though.

I hope you enjoyed the weekend, it is certainly a fantastic place to train, imagine having that on your door step!! I undesrtand being nervous about snakes, it's a risk with training anywhere at this time of year

[FHRP]

My next puppy I am going to start retrieveing training from day dot. What are some big DO NOT DO's and is there a really good resource for games to play with pups to encourage retrieveing drive?

A couple of Do Not Do's with young pups, IMO

Do not ever discourage the pup from picking up and carrying things, no matter how naughty it is Always tell them they're a good dog and gently take it from them. Never snatch things from their mouth and don't take things immediately from them, give them a pat and tell them how good they are before getting them to release the item, swapping for something else if necessary (even a treat).

Do not have your pup compete for a retrieve with another mad retriever that they are likely to fail against. This can put a pup right off retrieving. When doing fun puppy retrieves put the other dog/s away. Make it about you and your pup, not the pup and another dog.

[RubyStar]

Great tips, FHRP!! I had a naughty Lab puppy (no, really!! ) and she would pick up anything and everything. If only I knew to encourage it back then instead of having my blood pressure rise with chasing her around for it and not winning

[dogdayz]

Interesting the inadvertant things they learn as a pup that can have consequences down the track.

My 8 year old weim has never in his life retrieved anything back to me despite his enthusiasm to fetch it. All because as a pup i always let him play alongside my collie rough who had herself learned great enthusiasm for retrieving playing alongside a ball obsessed cattledog. I never thought that play process would prove an issue to the gundog down the track. From day 1 the weim was enthusiastic to fetch and with greater speed than the collie would always reach an article ahead of her, pick it up and head back to me ... but collie cunning and dominance won the day everytime....she would wait half way out for him to fetch it back, and calmly walk up and take it from his mouth, and then it was the collie who completed the return. If you remove the collie then he simply stops halfway back and drops the article. We have spent many years trying every method you can find in books and internet, even removing myself and giving him to another trainer to try and reshape his behaviour, long long breaks with no fetching to try and break the old habit, but it just seems its too ingrained.

Someone asked me if i was going to look at utility gundog testing for him now which he would love, but as i pointed out he still cant fetch a dumbell for obedience from 5 meteres, what hope is there for him (unless they change rules to let me have a collie assisting )

[RallyValley]

Keep the tips coming

Really appreciatve of this thread thanks guys

Also what equipment do you need from puppy training to first trial (I think I will have everything ready before the next pup arrives which is years away )

[FHRP]

How's the training going RubyStar? I have managed to get out a couple of times this week for some short sessions with Polo. I have done very little training this year and if I want to ever run him in All Age I need to get stuck in! I must admit, doing some field work this year has seen my interest for retrieving wane a bit. I have gone back to some pretty basic stuff to hopefully improve our foundations. So, I just did some handling - backs and overs and re-established a couple of memory blinds. He was a good boy ;)

RallyValley, when I started out all I had was a few dummies, but I was lucky enough to train with people who had all the gear! If you can afford a thrower they are very handy, and if you train alone one with a remote is a real bonus, or a bumper boy if you can afford it! If you want to be able to set up a control point and a firing point like in a trial, a few electric fence posts will do the job. I'd also recommend a whistle (or 10!), even though I didn't introduce it to Rogan before he got to restricted, Polo and all future pups will learn to sit and come to whistle from the start. Gumboots and a game/dummy bag are handy. Oh, and a freezer to keep all the pigeons, rabbits etc. in!! :D

[RallyValley]

Thanks for the advice FHRP. You may know this next one. How on earth do you source a fox in Australia? (For training the dogs, not as a pet obviously)

[FHRP]

Why do you want a fox? They aren't used in Retrieving trials... I do have one though, it was road kill. Don't know where else you would source one, maybe someone with a property that shoots feral animals?

Edited December 12, 2010 by FHRP

[RallyValley]

Why do you want a fox? They aren't used in Retrieving trials... I do have one though, it was road kill. Don't know where else you would source one, maybe someone with a property that shoots feral animals?

If/when I get my LM once it is old enough I would like to do some work with one. In Germany to part of the ability test is that a LM must retrieve a fox over a 1m high fence. I don't know the full significance yet but I am sure I will when I learn German or get a better translator engine.

Edited December 12, 2010 by RallyValley

[RallyValley]

I found a refrence to the test:

These pictures are made of our training yesterday. We had a fox to train with, which is rather special. Hennie and Tonnie want to enter a German VGP test this fall with Kalle and Athos and for that the dogs need to fetch foxes.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y96HLpYzilk/TFcL.../IMGP0720-1.jpg

You can now see the picture at the above link.

(Picture will dissapear shortly to prevent thread being de-railed in future)

Edited December 12, 2010 by RallyValley

[RubyStar]

How's the training going RubyStar? I have managed to get out a couple of times this week for some short sessions with Polo. I have done very little training this year and if I want to ever run him in All Age I need to get stuck in! I must admit, doing some field work this year has seen my interest for retrieving wane a bit. I have gone back to some pretty basic stuff to hopefully improve our foundations. So, I just did some handling - backs and overs and re-established a couple of memory blinds. He was a good boy

You make my training sound almost pathetic All I've been doing in the backyard is building Ruby's enthusiasm to bring the dummy back and present it nicely. I really don't know where to go from here to teach more advanced stuff, which is the biggest reason for the retrieving training never going anywhere over the past couple of years...

I am going to start on training the sit and come to whistle. That is hopefully my summer project, however, when it's so hot, I find I lack motivation to train and if I'm lacking motivation, you can bet Ruby is lacking it even more!! I also need to teach her to not shake when she exits the water until after she hands me the dummy. I am trying to get her to recognise the "shake" command so that she will only shake on command, to help prevent her doing it at her own will, but this is a toughie. And little access to water to train this is not progressing this goal very much at all

I would love some tips on teaching direction and some of the advanced things I will need to teach (please explain backs and overs? ). I need to learn first what all these things are, not just how to teach them, if that makes any sense! So if you anyone can let me know what things I should be teaching that I will need, and then some tips on how to teach them, I'd be very grateful!!

[The Spotted Devil]

Puppy Training Progress Report

I had a lovely afternoon with Lablover today. We took 2 of her dogs and little Em out for some training. Miss E. was a little overwhelmed by the Labs at first but she gained confidence as the afternoon went on.

First stop was an oval which was flat with reasonably short grass. MY first lesson was to make these early retrieves lots of fun and easy with lots of 'wins' for puppy. I gently restrained Em whilst LL did 'walking singles'. For the newbies to retrieving, this involves the 'thrower' (in this case LL) standing a distance from the pup+handler and getting pup's attention on the retrieve article by calling out excitedly 'hey, hey, hey!' When pup was looking in the right direction, LL threw the bumper in a smooth arc to my left of field. When it hit the ground and Em was straining towards it I let her go. She raced out and after looking slightly confused, picked up the bumper. With a little encouragement she was soon racing back to me to deliver the bumper and get a treat (boring dry biscuits would you believe!) LL then walked to my right of field and repeated the exercise but always throwing to my left of field, so it was essentially the exact same retrieve but repeated in different positions. This is so the pup doesn't fall in the habit of hunting where she has already found a bumper, although LL said that if she had trouble initially she would have repeated retrieves in the same position to get pup's confidence up. We had a nice mixture from Em....some of her retrieves were "oh, this is SO what I was born to do" whilst others were like "oh, there's a butterfly! Oh look, some egg shells on the ground! Hmmm, I wonder if bark is what I'm supposed to fetch" :p Basically just a 16 week old puppy being a puppy! The great thing about training with LL is that as soon as Em got a bit distracted or stopped hunting or lost confidence she would get her attention back by calling 'hey, hey, hey!' and/or throwing another bumper. We tried a few things like having a very short lead attached to Em's collar so I didn't have to crouch on the ground and she could run with it, but it distracted her so much she tried to pick it up and bring it back to me. Neither LL or I can recall what distance the retrieves were but they were several times more than I can throw with a soft toy so I was very pleased with her first attempt. It didn't take long for her to be quite tired after all the novelty and brain strain so we gave her a break whilst LL trained the other dogs, which is always great to watch.

Then it was off to a very large park (grass was too long for baby puppy retrieves) with lots of water - so the Labs got to swim and retrieve bumpers (it's their favourite thing in the world and not like work at all) whilst I got to roll up my jeans, take my boots off and wade into the water to encourage Emily in for a paddle and a play. I kinda wish LL had a camera as I was dancing around like an absolute idiot, playing come catch me games with Em, covered with mud and water and came very close to falling in on several occasions ;) Once Em got the hang of leaping about in the shallows I took her lead off and went a bit deeper. I was yelling at LL: 'She can swim! She can swim!' and LL was laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes because Em was NOT swimming but just splashing in deep water and I was getting carried away, like the proud Mamma I am ;) Anyway, she DID eventually swim a tiny bit and found her way back to the shallow part with more confidence. We finished with a playful game in the shallows and then all traipsed back to the car.

I came away from LL's with a couple of bags of light reading and viewing Emily slept all the way home and is pretty tired even now. Hopefully we will do it all again later in the week