Hedger Posted April 20, 2004 Report Share Posted April 20, 2004 Rosa is 7 months. She is very good on sit, stay, heel, come back, stop whistle. She points well, and held some wild pheasants beautifully under her point last weekend (not scripted, we were just out for a walk in the countryside). All training is praise and reward based. I just started her on dummy work this weekend. Previously she has enjoyed bringing all sorts of things to me, and whatever they are (even really stinky old rabbit bits) I praise her and she releases to hand. Last evening, on a grassy footpath, I threw the dummy and told her to Fetch It....she ran straight to it and put her mouth on it, at the same moment I blew the whistle to call her back....AND AT THE EXACT SAME MOMENT she stepped on a hidden nail on the footpath (I found it afterwards). It obviously hurt her a LOT! She jumped back in pain and yelped loud. After that she was terrified at the idea of picking up the dummy, and very reluctant to return to my whistle. I tried a couple more times in a different spot after this, but stopped and came home as it was just getting worse. She obviously associates Dummy-Whistle-Pain. So what do I do next? How do I get her back to liking retrieve training. I am worried. There are some real experts here.....guys, I would appreciate your advice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fisherman Mike Posted April 20, 2004 Report Share Posted April 20, 2004 Patience and reassurance is the key here Hedger. Dont stop using the whistle. change the dummy for a different one but try to have her mouth it and return it at a shorter range where you can control her and reassure her manually, perhaps even indoors for a while. I started my 6 month old cocker pup off indoors with a stufffed rabbit skin dummy and he picked it up straight away. Luckily dogs quickly forget the unfortunate things in life and she will be back on track pretty quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff B Posted April 20, 2004 Report Share Posted April 20, 2004 Don't panic and don't let her see you are concerned, lay off dummy work for a few days and do other fun things with her, try letting someone hold her on the lead while you run a short distance away, start calling her excitedly and when she is raring to come to you get the other person to let go the lead, as she is coming in use the recall whistle followed by lots of praise when she arrives. Repeat this a few times so she then really enjoys responding to the whistle. When this is successful, using the same exercise, as soon as she gets to you , throw a retrieve, say off to the right and send her for it immediately using the recall whistle and her name to call her back when she has picked it. Don't use a dummy at this stage use a bundle of knotted socks, as this starts to work well put a dummy inside a couple of the socks and repeat the exercise, not the same dummy as you used before though. With success remove or gradually cut away the socks until she is retrieving the dummy, it's always a good tip to wipe your hands over a retrieving object to put some of your scent on it. This whole process in small stages over a week or so but don't make an issue of the problem, let her think its all part of the fun. Jeff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
new to the flock Posted April 21, 2004 Report Share Posted April 21, 2004 I just started her on dummy work this weekend. Previously she has enjoyed bringing all sorts of things to me, and whatever they are (even really stinky old rabbit bits) I praise her and she releases to hand. She obviously associates Dummy-Whistle-Pain. So what do I do next? How do I get her back to liking retrieve training. I am worried. Hedger: Your dog has lost some of her confidance, when she stepped on the nail. By the way bet you could not set that one up to happen in a million years. Your best bet now is to back up. You say that she enjoyed bringing all sorts of things to you, take a step back and make this fun again. Go into the back yard and start throwing a ball for her to chase and bring back. During this play period do not use the whistle. When she is having a ball,(get it...a ball), sorry, mix a dummy in on one of the throws. Most likely she will not even notice. However if she does and refuses to pick it up, just carry on with throwing differant objects for her to retrieve. Slip the dummy in again when she is really fired up. She should be picking up dummys again within a couple to three weeks. After she is comfortable with the dummy again, then re-introduce the whistle to the retrieve. You will find she doesn't even notice the reintroduction. Just be sure to check the area over for nails first, and if you run the same combination as you did when this first happened buy a loto ticket.... :thumbs: Remember the simplest way to fix a problem that you run into during training is to back up a step. Look at what your dog does well and break the problem down into steps. Then use your dogs good talents to overcome the problem steps. Remember keep it FUN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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