virgil Posted July 17, 2008 Report Share Posted July 17, 2008 Hi, i have been training my first gun dog a Lab bitch and i`m struggling with her giving up the dummy! She was ok when i first started training but when she hit 13 to 14 months she started being a pain with not giving up dummy. She does it with all toys like tennis ball, she will carry a ball or dummy all day but won`t give it up. I know it`s probably something i`ve done and she has picked up on it. It is my first time with a gun dog so i expected making mistakes. She is 15 months now i know i have loads of time but need advice please. V Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2shots Posted July 17, 2008 Report Share Posted July 17, 2008 I had the same problem with a lab but walked in one day to find the grandson playing tug of war with him with the dummy silly little things like this knock your training for weeks it took ages and loads of treats to revert him back to releasing again,and the guy that got him says he still thinks hes playing at times and refuses to release. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
new to the flock Posted July 17, 2008 Report Share Posted July 17, 2008 Instead of trying to pull the dummy from the dogs mouth, push it in. This will cause the dog to open his mouth at which point you can put a command to the exercise....."out"......and remove the dummy. Give him lots of praise and pet him out and give a treat every 3rd or 5 th one until he is consistant. If this does not work let me know and i will try to come up with something else for you. NTTF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giles Farmer Posted July 17, 2008 Report Share Posted July 17, 2008 I might be way off the mark with this one but.... Had a little problem with my springer a couple of years back whereby she would not release her retrieve. She would clamp her jaw and go as far as growling when you tried to remove it from her mouth. A little research pointed me in the direction of her testing her authority/pack position and the advice I followed was to look at influencing factors. After not letting her sit on the furniture (stop frowning...not my fault blame the ex-wife!!) then making her sit and wait before allowing her to eat her food etc... basically stamping my authority on her and and letting her know I am in control, she came good. I read that Springers do challenge the authority at different stages of their maturity but must say since the new regime she has not tried it again. As for labs? can't say I have heard of it but maybe she is at the age where she is testing her pack position? Like I said, I may be way off the mark but it doesn't hurt to look at the other areas of her handling, not just the retrieving. Good luck with it all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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