What exactly is the forced retrieve? Could someone give me a brief explanation please?

Thanks,
Marie

The FR is a highly controversial topic, to define it best. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> Various methods are used from double prong collars, dog on a platform/table to electric and ear pinches. Whatever method is used......the dog basically is taught that taking the dumbell ends the pain/discomfort. Dropping it prior to command brings it all back on.

In the end, you have a dog who retreives as an avoidance behaviour: do this and you avoid pain/discomfort.

Many people swear that this is the only way to get a reliable retrieve. As in all training, I believe that it depends on your dog's innate drives (natural retreiver or not), you abilities as a trainer, and your bond with your dog to determine how reliable the dog will be.

You are better off to try a motivational retrieve for your training if the dog has the prey drive for the work.

When the motivational work is done you will always have to introduce distractions to proof the dog (some call it provoke an error)and get consistency.

If a dog does not have adequate prey drive you are goig to have to use force though.

Ed, I think I remember that you used to believe that the retrieve had to be trained using force. You didn't think that a real motivational retrieve was possible. Have you changed your feelings about this, and if so why?

Thanks.

I used to feel like this but I no longer do. I have been to enough Bernard Flinks seminars to look at the retrieve in a different way.

If a dog can be trained motivationally then that is how it should be done. That does not mean that you do not proof the dog by introducing distractions after the dog is trained to understand the command.

Once the dog knows the meaning of the word "BRING" you then correct him for refusing to obey. This is a totally different concept that using force from day one.

The concept is simple, train the retrieve the way that you train every obedience exercise. First teach him the exercise using whatever motivates the dog (prey or food and praise) once he has learned the exercise then correct him for not doing it - then provoke him to make a mistake and force him to do it.

With this foundation you can get a happier faster retrieve than using force from the beginning without giving the dog a chance.

The risk in usinng force from day one is that a dog will learn the pattern of the schutzhund routine. He willlearn that "THE SHIT DUMB BELL WORK" comes after the recall and the recalls will then slow down.

I will have a motivational retrieve video with the training steps out in the future.

Personaly I think that "The Forced Retrive" is misnamed. WE all force/make our dogs retrive when they don't want to, this is called reliability. But "The Forced Retrive" is simply using only negatives to make the dog comply, imagine using two prong collers and a stake to force a dog to take the sleave, would we trust that dog to be relaible in protecting us when the heat was on???

I would not pattern the retrieve. He can not anticipate it if he does not know it is coming. If the retrieve is taught right, the dog learns to look forward to it. Rich <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

My bitch has high prey drive and loves to play fetch in general. Teaching the retreive itself was not a problem.

Where I did run into issues was the mouthing.....she very cheerfully brings the db back, but sometimes is mouthy. I got out a clicker and used it to mark her sitting calmly with the db in her mouth, and then worked in the command brings. We started with a nanosecond of calmness and now typically sit for 10-60 seconds, at random.

No force was involved and she truly loves to retreive. In our two attempts at SchH1, each time we've returned to the db tree for me to return the SchH1 db, she tries to grab a SchH3 db and continue the game. At one trial, she almost got to her voraus, complete with SchH3 db. :P

The forced retrieve is something that most people cannot do, and I have only seen it done by the very best of trainers that it looks like it should. It requires time, experience, and time to do it. The true defintion of the forced retrieve is that the dog does this exercise from start to finish totaly through the fear a complusion from its handler. Most dogs that perform this exercise require a handler that in this country, is hard to find, that is willing to put that kind of pressure on a dog, that what most would call abuse. It is not that uncommon in Europe to find this method used widley. Therefore it is probaly better that most people do the motivational retrieve other then the force. Saying this this does not mean that conflict training, such as corrections on the exercise cannot be used. THat is not the forced retrieve. Also it is worth mentioning that most people that use the forced retrieve have someone else do it to avoid stressing thier own dog to that point when teaching this exercise, at the least all other training normally stops, to avoid the stress of the training spilling over to other parts such as tracking, etc. The thing that most people do not understand is when the dog does not want to do the exercise it is pushed into doing it, and this sometimes is not a pretty picture to watch. I would like to hear what others think about this.

Sorry, I just read this thread. The most succesfull field trial dogs are force fetched. And believe me these dogs have tons of retrieve drive. The forced retrieve just hones there skills and shows them exactly how you need it done. If done right they come out much better than if left to there own natural abilities. If this were not so then none of the field trial people with crazy retrieving dogs would ever do it. In Sch. you can get away with out because it is so patterned but you will have so much more reliability with it on strange fields, dumbells etc. Rich