I think I know the answer to this already, but I'm always happy to hear about other people's experiences and advice. Willow is obsessed with rocks. Not small stones, no. Rocks she can barely hold because of their size. Veritable boulders sometimes. She sees one that catches her fancy and has to pick it up. I always distract her, normally with asking for a behaviour so she then spits it out for a treat, or throwing something else for her to chase. She'll sometimes go back for it, so I have to do it again, but if I get it right, we'll have moved far enough in the meantime so she forgets about it. I obviously don't let her carry them any distance; I'm scared for her teeth (and worse if she trips). I've known quite a few Labs over the years who have loved stones and their owners either haven't minded it, or have actively encouraged it, throwing rocks for them to chase. So it's clearly not just Willow. Their best mate, Alfie, is a terrible rock-carrier. If I keep on distracting her and removing the rocks, do you think she'll ever grow out of her desire to carry them?
I think this is quite unusual, but having a dog that will try to retrieve a brick, understandable here....she will probably grow out of it but in terms of finding out it's not a great thing to do. That's what happened with Charlie, he eventually learned that picking up ridiculous things wasn't a great idea because he hurt his mouth a bit. The only thing I'd say is do make sure that a chain isn't building (it did with Charlie and "pick something up, follow a cue, get a reward" is very, very strong for him) - particularly since some of his cues are themselves reinforcing now.
I was wondering if Willow likes the shape and size? What sort of things are you asking Willow to retrieve out of interest?
I thought the same about the chaining, Julie. I have to be very careful with that. Kate, the rocks tend to be pretty big, as big as she can fit in her mouth. They'll be around 8 inches long, by maybe 5 inches wide, sometimes flatish, sometimes square. She's tried to dig up bigger ones, but they tend to be stuck into the ground too solidly. Her absolute favourite thing is picking them up from a stream bed, though, sticking her head right under to get them. She's only just learnt she likes water, and now she has a new game to amuse herself... I'm hoping this means she'll enjoy water retrieves when we can get to some deeper water. But general retrieving is done with dummies. I was using very light foam-filled puppy dummies, but when I was in the UK, I picked up some "proper" 1lb dummies, a bird dummy and some water retrieving dummies. I've not done a lot with these yet (nothing with the water ones), but Willow sees them as super exciting and has started doing laps of honour with them, which she very rarely did with the old puppy dummies! Another work in progress She also likes the squeaky Kong tennis balls, but I don't use these a lot because of worry about the wear on their teeth, so they're a super duper reward when they get them. Oh, and pine cones are an absolute favourite for general chase games. She likes to see how many she can fit in her mouth at one time. Shadow just crunches them into bits.
Yes, the action becomes associated with the food, then the cue with the action....that's a useful thing, I think, it's why an engaged dog will keep working without rewards, but it's a pain in terms of distracting a dog, for sure. I am convinced that I will be living with Charlie nicking and carrying stuff in the house forever....
That's a real pain - it's been so limiting with Charlie and extremely difficult to solve. Willow is a bit older now, she is not very young anymore, so I'd be super careful with that. One thing that I regret doing is building desire in a way that was focused around the dummy. I wish I had better appreciated that I wanted to build desire not for the retrieve article, but for the retrieve. Next pup, we'll be a great deal more casual about dummies. (Knowing my luck, next pup will be completely different and this will be equally disastrous.... ).
I like the game that Helen had me playing with them, throwing a dummy one way then, when they brought it back and dropped it (working towards a hand delivery, I assume), throwing another the other way. I think that's good for building desire to bring it back to you, so they get another go?
Scooby is also rock-obsessed. I'm afraid all I do is make sure he has something else to carry. He takes his Kong stick when we go for a walk anywhere, and carries that - he doesn't pick up stones then. All his pointy teeth are broken from what must have been a lifetime of rock-obsession. I would definitely try & nip it in the bud. He will still get distracted by rocks in a river/stream and bring them out - they have to be exchanged for sticks.
This game has been a "fix" for Charlie - partly, anyway. It's a puppy version of a switch retrieve. But it does reward a dummy with a dummy throw - for Charlie, there is not much choice because now it's impossible to build up any other reward to the value of the dummy. In an ideal world though, I would have something he wanted more than a dummy, which he would get for bringing a boring old dummy back to me. I built up far too much desire for the dummy itself - by treating them as something special, not to be played with, and in my own reactions to him failing to hand them over. I'd have been much better off doing that with something else and treating the dummy as nothing special whatsoever.
We have started doing something similar with Benson, in a session I may use a Kong tennis ball, followed by a couple of toys in quick succession to keep that drive up and working towards a good delivery.So he brings me back a toy/dummy, then I almost instantly squeak and throw the Kong tennis ball. I don't necessarily use just dummies the Kong soft toy range are really good too. I have to add here that Benson doesn't really have a high drive, we had to train a retrieve, didn't really seem to come naturally compared to other labs we have watched, so our approach may be different to others. On the subject of the Kong tennis ball, (please someone correct me if I am wrong ) I believe they are constructed specially not to wear down dogs teeth?
I think it's the tennis ball fabric, rather than the shape etc, that is the culprit - it collects grit and this generates the abrasion. I just use rubber balls.
On the Kong site it states that they will not wear down a dogs teeth due to using non-abrasive fabric. I have just emailed Kong regarding evidence to support this claim. I use the Kong Air Squeakers primarily because of the fact. Sorry to hijack your thread Snowbunny!
Oh, well done, Kate. Let's see what they say. (We'll have to watch it, otherwise we'll start to have a "mumsnet" reputation with suppliers ).
Scary isn't it? Surely there are better ways of spending a Sunday afternoon, rather than examining tennis ball fabric....
We didn't have interest in rocks but Dexter was a right pain with stones.....at 5-7 months he would sit by the back door staring out on the garden desperate for us to let him out so he could go and get one.....Even occasionally now if we've got friends round and are outside he will go off and dig one up if I haven't got my beady on him! We distracted,removed ,substituted ( with ice cubes, not practical on a walk I know ) and he grew out of it...it's pebbles he likes...the nice ornamental size ones that could finish him off if he swallowed one ! X
Brody hasn't progressed on to rocks yet but loves stones, and also sticks. For us i think we are going to try and discourage him, as worried he swallows one or as you said trips and falls with it in his mouth. Hoping that the distracting with something "better" works. I have read that having an alternative "stick" would help, so wondering in this case with the "rock" you find a safer alternative?
Yup, we normally swap it for a pine cone. She's all about possessing stuff (whereas her brother, Shadow, is all about the chase) and she can often be found carrying four cones in her mouth at one time
The best one was when we were in England at a place with those long cones. Shadow picked one up at the end so it was hanging out of his mouth like a cigar. He looked like Winston Churchill. Then Willow went one better and had one sticking out either side of her mouth, like some mad moustache I must take my camera along more often!
