For some reason this section of the forum has been pretty quiet over the past year. If it's because you guys find it's a breeze to train the retrieve, then I envy you

I am hoping to read of as many different methods & variations that people have successfully used to train a motivational retrieve (and to hear of the positives and negatives of each method and what type of dog they best apply to).

My goal is schutzhund for my dogs so I'm striving for a quick, accurate retrieve with no mouthing on the dumbell.

I have experienced trouble in all 3 of these areas while training the exercise (although I have managed to work through most of the issues) so I'd love to hear of other people's experience with this.

Here's a quick video of Taro (18-month-old GSD) executing two simple retrieves on the flat - it's still a very recently learned exercise for him:

http://s158.photobucket.com/albums/t101/oomu/?action=view&current=retrieve3.flv

I actually could've titled that one "How NOT to train the retrieve". As you can see (for the first retrieve), I failed to properly assess terrain suitability for the work (there was god&$#! ice everywhere UGH).

I used Bernhard Flinks' first method to train Taro. Ed's "Training the motivational retrieve with B. Flinks" DVD has all the details, but basically I "made a deal" with my dog: he brings me the dumbell and, in exchange, he gets the ball.

I followed the instructions on the DVD to the letter, but unfortunately the training did not proceed nearly as smoothly as was demonstrated by Flinks

On our first session, I had Taro sit by my side, showed him the orbee (as demonstrated in the tape), hid the orbee in my jacket, made drive with the dumbell, dropped dumbell at my feet and pointed to it while giving the command.

He didn't even look at the dumbell, he just stared at me wanting the orbee. I tried putting movement into the dumbell by tying a string to it and making it move around, but again, he couldn't care less about it and kept staring at me and whining for the ball.

Next session I left the orbee ball at home and focused on building drive for the dumbell. Went great, Taro had fun picking it up and running around with it. Even sat nicely in front of me without mouthing it.

Problem is, Taro is NOT the type of dog who brings prey items back to me to play. He's extremely intent on carrying the item around and keeping it away from me.
He does the "in my arms" thing just fine, and loves standing in my arms being petted, AS LONG AS I DON'T TRY TO REACH FOR THE PREY ITEM!

If I try to grab the prey item, he squirms and puts his whole body through impossible contortions to keep it out of my reach (even though he stays "in the arms" position).

However, if I could get him to understand that bringing the dumbell back would mean being rewarded with the orbee, then I'd have the whole exercise in the bag (he'd do anything for the orbee).

That's where the headaches started. He's such a one-track mind dog that he only focuses on the highest value prey item. If the dumbell's all I have, he'll play with it, but if he so much as smells the orbee ball, then he'll refuse to even hold the thing.

I ended up substituting the dumbell for a little puppy tug and spent session after session after session trying to stuff the tug in his mouth and get a half-second hold before rewarding him with the orbee.

About a month into the training, he would actually open his mouth a little when I said "brings" and willingly allowed me to put it in his mouth, even though he would not take the tug on his own.

A few weeks later, he actually started taking the tug in his mouth on his own, then after a few more weeks of this, I could have him willing hold the tug in the front position, and if I backed away from him saying "brings", he would come forward and sit in the front position without dropping the tug!

I also started working on extending the calm hold (as demonstrated by Bernhard) and I also rewarded the way Bernhard instructs (slowly, with tension) so as not to encourage spitting out the tug.

It took another gazillion years (another month or two) to progress to me holding the tug lower and lower so Taro would have to reach closer and closer to the ground to grab the tug and bring it to me, and finally he even started picking the tug up off the ground.

Another month and he would actually run out, pick up the tug and bring it back to the front position and sit there holding with no mouthing for 20+ seconds.

I tried switching him to a dumbell (a plastic dumbell I found in my garage) and we had to start over at square 1 again. Sigh.

It took another month or so of work to get him to retrieve the heavy plastic dumbell like he did the puppy tug.

It was such a relief when I finally got a QUALITY wooden Sch1 dumbell from Leerburg (love those auctions ). The plastic one was not a good choice - it was heavy (3-4 lbs I think), it was slippery and hard to grip for my pup, he clearly wasn't thrilled with holding it and would mouth a lot. Plus it HURT when he dropped it on my feet!!

He LOVES the wooden one and this alone just about eliminated his mouthing (he can actually get a firm grip on the wood so it doesn't slide around in his mouth!).

Here's a video of him retrieving that stupid plastic dumbell (it was taken about a week before the first retrieve video I posted):

http://s158.photobucket.com/albums/t101/oomu/?action=view&current=retrieve2.flv

So working with a quality dumbell definitely helped


Anyway, that was my experience. I think it worked out nicely enough in the end, but it was the most challenging exercise I've ever trained!! Taro normally picks everything up so quickly, but he really blocked on this for some reason (99% sure it's because I didn't teach it right )

Needless to say, I'm hoping that receving imput from you guys will help me be more effective teaching this exercise in the future. Bernhard mentions that when done right, this method can teach a dog the concept of the retrieve within one afternoon.

...

Lol... I really need help

Looking forward to hearing others' experience with this!

Ughhh... sorry for the novel there. I always write too much

By all means feel free to skip the read and just explain how you trained the exercise :-)

 Quote:

It took another gazillion years (another month or two) to progress to me holding the tug lower and lower so Taro would have to reach closer and closer to the ground to grab the tug and bring it to me, and finally he even started picking the tug up off the ground.

Yuko, I hope you don't mind a question here but I'm a ways behind you on this and I'm curious about this part. What got Taro coming forward to take the dumbell? The only part I've been working on is the calm hold and I'm not sure how I want to progress. Thanks Yuko, and I hope this topic gets a lot of replies.

Bob Scott taught me how to teach the retrieve. I'm gonna PM him and hope he jumps in.

 Quote: steve strom

Yuko, I hope you don't mind a question here but I'm a ways behind you on this and I'm curious about this part. What got Taro coming forward to take the dumbell? The only part I've been working on is the calm hold and I'm not sure how I want to progress. Thanks Yuko, and I hope this topic gets a lot of replies.

Hey Steve!

The DVD does mention the two most important (crucial) points that your dog has to have down before you should start training the retrieve.

First point is what you're already teaching Andy - having the dog learn to be comfortable holding something in front of his handler.

Second point is that the dog should be absolutely proficient on the "come" command, where he understands that he's to sit closely and squarely in front of his handler.

Taro was great in both those areas so what I did was have him sit in front of me, holding the puppy tug (at the time he was more willing to hold that than the dumbell). When he was giving me a nice hold, I backed up a few steps and gave him the "come" command, like Bernhard demonstrates with Itor.

That part actually went smoothly, Taro came right up to me and sat down again, still holding the tug.

As far as having him come forward to take the tug, I just put him in a sit, backed up a few steps, held the tug at mouth-level for him and gave the brings command. At that point he was already taking the tug on his own if I held it in front of his face, so I just started adding distance between him and the tug.

The harder part was when I started lowering the tug so that he actually had to reach down to grab it. For the longest time he refused to take it unless it was right in front of his mouth.

That's how I taught it, but then again it took me ages to teach my dog so there MUST be a better way!

I also hope that more people pipe in and share some of their retrieving secrets

Thanks Connie, I also hope that Bob jumps in! He did achieve some pretty awesome scores with his sch dog, if I remember correctly

 Quote: yuko blum

I backed up a few steps and gave him the "come" command, like Bernhard demonstrates with Itor.

Didn't phrase that properly, sorry.

Bernhard does give the "heir" command to get the dog to come & sit in the front position once the dog is holding the dumbell, but Bernhard never backs up at any point. Itor picks the dumbell right off the ground so there was never any need for Bernhard to move...........

Thanks Yuko. Am I reading it right, you taught him to come and take the tug toy and then switched to the dumbell when he knew what you wanted him to do?

Yep.

If I'd had this nice light wooden dumbell I could've started with it (Taro loves holding anything wooden).

I had a much harder time convincing him to hold the heavy slippery 'ol plastic dumbell back then so I used the tiny puppy tug to speed things up.

Great, thanks again Yuko. It may not be as difficult as I thought, he'll come forward and take a toy now. Gotta ask for that nice wood dumbell for Christmas. It didnt seem like that long ago I wanted Gi Joes or Hot Wheels and now I want a block of wood!!

I used the wooden one too, of am appropriate size for the size dog, and I used it first.

Step one was several sessions of marking and rewarding for just approaching the dumbell. Then touching his nose to it, or licking it..... then putting his mouth around the middle only (ignoring teeth on the ends). Some people wrap the middle so it has good grip-ability.

I did many markers and rewards for any kind of "dumbell is good" action.

(This was maybe 8 or more short sessions to get to where the dog was picking it up in his teeth.)