please let me know your opinions My lab retrieves tennis balls and dead duck in the yard fine will come directly back. she will retrieve in the water but as soon as her feet touch bottom again she releases the duck/dummy/or ball. and just wants to play with it and if i call her to me she will leave it in the water and come to me. I can send her back for it but she just goes back to playing with it and will not pick it up and bring it back. this seems to be only an issue in the water because she does everything perfectly on dry ground. although if she retrives over the seawall she will jump back up on dry land and continue the retrieve all the way to my hand but on a sloping bank she will stand in belly deep water and play. thanks!
Re: 1 yr old lab not completing retrieve in water?? What is she fetching from water - a ball or a dummy? And is it seawater?
Re: 1 yr old lab not completing retrieve in water?? she does this with all balls/toys or real birds and in fresh water and its any time the water is shallow enough for her to run and splash in. for example if she has to jump over the seawall she doesnt have much choice to run and play so she will jump up and then bring it back but at the boat ramp she will stay in 4-6inches of water and just splash and kick at the dummy or bird etc. and will leave it there if i call her to me at that time let me know if this helps. ive tried everything i can think of
Re: 1 yr old lab not completing retrieve in water?? It just sounds like she is playing (as soon as the water depth allows her to rather than swim). So it's like your fetch cue (the delivery part) just isn't strong enough. I have this problem apart from in water!
Re: 1 yr old lab not completing retrieve in water?? Don't stand at the waters edge waiting for the dog to come to you, when the dog picks the dummy start walking away. In fact send the dog for the retrieve from a distance from the water. I find this also helps when a dog stops to shake after coming out of the water.
Re: 1 yr old lab not completing retrieve in water?? I can only offer views based on someone that also has tried just about everything to stop a dog messing with a retrieve - with an admission of only mixed success though! ;D ;D ;D My dog is super keen to retrieve, and super keen to swim. His ability to swim for quite a long time was built up carefully. I resolved my dog's reluctance to hand over stuff getting out of water by getting into the water with him and have him swim to me with the retrieve and threw another one that he just turned round (still swimming) to get. Eventually, I made my way out of the water and was able to stand on the bank. This was part of hydrotherapy exercises for him! It wasn't about the retrieve at all! He now delivers anything to hand from water. Not so on land. It probably worked because it was just impossible for him to play around with the retrieve (he was swimming) so I was able to reward hundreds of successful retrieves. So now he just doesn't mess about with the retrieve coming out of water. You could try walking away - but it relies on a dog not wanting to lose you, so it attempts to prompt the dog to travel towards you. If it didn't work for the dog as a pup, it certainly won't for an older dog of a year old. It's a disaster as a tactic for my dog, he is just left to his own devices to play. I don't often say "clicker retrieve" because I think it is so very hard to generalise it properly, it's pretty much impractical for a dog with a persistent delivery problem (at least, that is my experience). But would be tempted to try it if you only have a problem in one specific place though - it might be more practical - and start by just placing the dummy into shallow water. You can find the instructions here: http://totallygundogs.com/clicker-trained-retrieve/ It is not straightforward, even though experienced clicker trainers say it is (you might be experienced though). It's difficult to resolve things when it doesn't quite go to plan, and it takes weeks to train it properly once (although you can do an approximation quickly).
Re: 1 yr old lab not completing retrieve in water?? Thank you for the suggestions! I am not quite sure what method I will try next. I have tried to walk away from her, it works as far as her coming to me but the fact is that she comes without the dummy.. Since this is a very specific situation it just makes it more challenging to find a solution. She has a very strong retrieve in all other situations that I can think of. So I will let you all know if I come up with a solution. Thanks again
