Our almost 2 year old chocolate lab is obsessed with retrieving, especially tennis balls. He will drive us crazy to throw balls for him but even if we throw them until he is exhausted he will still want more. He is really out of control during this excersize. Should we just get balls out of his life, get him field trial trained or what?
Hi Deirdre and welcome of the forum. I think it's very easy for some Labs to become obsessed with tennis balls. The thing is, it's really not great for their joints to throw them over and over and over. My two only have balls for training purposes and as a reward for doing something good. I would recommend that anyone finds an activity to do with their Lab to harness their energy and intelligence. A few of us here do gun dog training (which is fab - you don't need to have any exposure to guns or dead critters if you're sensitive to that sort of thing), others do agility, flyball, scentwork... I'd suggest having a read up and decide what sounds like the most fun for you. Ensure that whatever class you choose is trained through positive reinforcement methods only. This is certainly more difficult to find in the gun dog training world, but there are a handful of trainer who use the modern methods. Where in the world are you? What's your boy's name? We'd love to see pictures
Very good advice from Snowbunny. Also not good for them mentally to be obsessed with fetching tennis balls. You can make it more interesting and difficult by hiding a tennis ball in long grass and letting your dog hunt for it, this will tire him mentally as well as physically.
Perfect advice. Compare the skills needed to have your dog sit, and stay, while you walk away and hide a ball, then go back to get him, and have him walk at heel until you tell him to hunt for the ball - he'll still love it, yet in training this kind of game, rather than just mindlessly running for a ball, you achieve so very much more....and so much better for the dog.
I didn't say hi and welcome! So hi and welcome. Gundog training - if, as Fiona says, you can find a positive trainer - will help you with this. Although a 3 year old dog that is obsessed and has no steadiness is a really hard challenge to crack in terms of making progress through the training. Dogs that are just over threshold about retrieving don't make the best gundogs at all. It's the dogs that are steady, focused, and able to channel their energies that make the best gundogs. That said, my own Chocolate Lab is an over excited, ball obsessed, retriever and gundog training has been the very, very best thing for us. My dog will never work though, he is far too excitable and not steady enough.
It would be interesting to see, when more structured exercises are put in place, whether your boy really is obsessed, or if that's the only game he gets to play, so makes the most of it. I'm certainly not saying he's not OTT, but you might find that, once you start incorporating more of the other elements, such as steadiness, that the whole procedure becomes so much more exciting than just the throw and chase, that he wants to learn more. This isn't the case with my boy, whose favourite thing is the chase - so I just use this as a reward for things I like, including retrieving patterns. For him, the ball isn't the exciting thing, it's running after a moving ball. I can easily ask him to sit steady while I throw it and then send him for it, but he never runs for it with the same enthusiasm as he does when it's in flight. My girl's motivation is completely different. She likes to possess things; as much as she likes a chase, sure, the important thing for her is to be holding her prize. So her reward is getting to run around with an object for a few minutes without me asking for it back. One of the most exciting things about training with positive methods, whatever discipline you choose to follow, is that it really helps you to notice the things that your dog likes and doesn't like. It helps you to understand your dog and his motivations more, and that can only lead to a better bond between the two of you. It also gives them purpose for the behaviours you want. A sit behaviour can be a bit of a pointless trick that only gives them a cookie, but if, once they've sat for a short while, they get released into a wonderful game of hunt, or retrieve, or jumping fences... well, even though those behaviours are all trained, too, they're such enjoyable activities for the dog that they become rewarding in themselves. Which means, sit becomes less of a trick and more a precursor to something amazing. Please do keep us updated and let us know what you choose to do.
Hi and welcome, I'm not at a stage where I can offer advice as my 8 month old has really got into balls the last month or so, not at the obsessive stage yet, like I first thought but was probably heading that way. I've had really great advice from members of this forum and I'm now starting out on my new training plans to work through with Dexter.
Swimming is good. My friend's dog, Zaba, stays with us often. He is totally obsessed with balls but only gets to swim for them - not run for them. He knows all the spots where we throw them for him to swim and gets very excited at those places. Tatze isn't interested at all, in swimming or balls, but her job is bringing the ball back to us as Zaba always leaves it at the edge of the lake/res lol! Twiglet isn't allowed a ball but she would soon become obsessed and she's fascinated watching Zaba and often swims out to meet him. She watches football on TV avidly! I would say that you have control of when and how your dog plays, however keen he is! So do what you think is right for him, ignore any pleas and don't have the ball visible when it's not time to play with it. .
As well as all the good advice above Please know that tennis balls are bad for their teeth if they mouth and chew on them a lot. The fuzzy coating of real tennis balls is abrasive in and of itself and it holds grit. I use a throw of a ball in training and I use ball hockey balls. They float, until the dog puts a tooth through. He prefers tennis balls though. You can get special tennis type balls for dogs, said to not be abrasive but they would still hold dirt. They aren't cheap either and if you're like me, used, real, tennis balls are free from friends who play.
Hi, thank you for your responses. I am in Savannah, Georgia, USA. This is my first discussion board, so pardon any errors I make in response. Everything I have received has been very helpful and insightful and I appreciate it. I would definitely say he is OTT obsessed! He will knock over anything in his path, including our new puppy and me. Yesterday, he even found where I had hid one on top of a 6 ft ladder and he jiggled the ladder until it came off. He somehow manages to find tennis balls everywhere from under furniture to in the woods wherever we go. I believe this started about a year ago when they doggy-day-care he was attending for socialization was entertaining him solely with tennis balls when the owners young lab (his main playmate) was injured for an extended period of time and couldn't play with other dogs. Rather than finding him other compatible playmates, they just wore him out throwing tennis balls. I was not aware of this for quite awhile. Once I found out I restricted his daycare visits unless his litter mate would be there at the same time to play with him. It made no sense to me that they wouldn't find him other playmates as he plays well with other dogs in dog parks, etc. This is actually one of the reasons why we recently bought a new yellow lab puppy. We had always planned on getting another, but finding all this out motivated me to go ahead and get another. We do have a dock with a doggy ladder on a future home site close to our residence. We regularly take him there and let him retrieve a training dummy to his hearts content. When he needs a break, he will rest on the ladder and drop the dummy until it floats away and then he retrieves it. This seems much healthier to me. It is not that I have a problem with the retrieving, just the out of control behavior that comes along with it. March 1st, he is going to go away for a month with a hunting dog trainer, but he will mainly be focusing on obedience. I have not been able to find a local Labrador club that offers owner/dog participation training, which would be preferable. I would love to post some photos, but can't figure out how.
