For this month's blog post I wanted to look at working with a reluctant retriever. Sounds odd, right? You'd think all gundogs naturally want to retrieve, but this isn't always the case, and it can be really frustrating. However, rather than me talk about it, I thought it would be interesting to hand over to some of my clients with different gundog breed types who have spent time and energy working through this issue. I asked them the same five questions:
Can you briefly describe your starting point in your retrieving journey?
What strategies did you use to get your dog motivated?
Did you change any other aspect of your training?
Was there a turning point? If so, what was it?
What advice would you give to someone struggling with a reluctant retriever?
We have a Retriever (Winnie the Labrador), a Hunting Retriever (Albert the Sprocker Spaniel) and a Hunting, Pointing Retriever (Bodhi the German Shorthaired Pointer), whose handlers have all kindly shared their experiences of building a retrieve desire in their dogs, so if this is an issue you face, read on!
Winnie the Labrador- Abigail and Jon
Can you briefly describe your starting point in your retrieving journey?
When we initially came with Winnie to Level 1 she was about a year old and had done no retrieving at all. We started with the classes and she was very unkeen to even collect a toy let alone a dummy but we knew that this was something that she could do if we got the training right. A large part of this is also being a good handler to your dog and Philippa really helped with these things. What was good though was that there was no pressure from Philippa during the sessions for her to achieve more than she was capable of.
What strategies did you use to get your dog motivated?
Winnie is very food motivated so a lot of the strategies were based round this. However the games that Philippa uses are really well structured to work towards the goal. There are little steps that build towards the end goal. This also means that Winnie stayed motivated and even if we weren’t getting it she had a lovely time. Also it just took time, practice and patience for her to understand what we wanted her to do.
Did you change any other aspect of your training?
We just kept going with each of the games and were guided by Philippa who adapted the games making the games smaller if they needed stepping back a little bit. There was never any pressure on the dog at all to "get it right".
Was there a turning point? if so, what was it?
I think it was level 3 suddenly Winnie seemed to understand that the dummy wasn’t the enemy! Until this point we just kept on introducing it and then if she wasn’t interested we just backed away and used other things like the fur covered balls or food. We also covered the dummy in a familiar sock which really helped. Now she will retrieve, but again we are led by her and if she has had enough then we stop.
What advice would you give other people who are struggling with a reluctant retriever?
We definitely would recommend that you persevere with a reluctant retriever as there is always hope!! I also think being in an environment where the routines and stages are structured and built upon where the dogs feel safe helps a huge amount. They will likely get there in their own time. They need to feel that it is fun and worth their time - a lot of rewards!!!!! It is changing the perception of what the dummy is really and making sure they stay motivated. We didn’t worry about it at home in that we just left the dummy out and about and if she showed any interest then we made a big fuss and this was the same in class.
To be honest the best thing to do with your dog is be consistent and the easiest way for us to do that is to attend a class regularly that supports your journey with no judgment on the dog! It is supposed to be fun and your dog should enjoy it and so should you! Our next steps are learning not to shred the feathers off things!
Albert the Sprocker Spaniel- Karen and Adam
Can you briefly describe your starting point in your retrieving journey?
When we first started our Fundog Gundog training journey Albert my sprocker spaniel had absolutely no interest in the dummy or retrieving it! I guess he didn't know what he was supposed to do with it and to him, there was no fun in it!
What strategies did you use to get your dog motivated?
To motivate him and make it fun, I played lots of games. I knew he loved a rabbit ball, so started with that. Throwing it out, telling him to get it and always rewarding and giving lots of fuss when he brought it back.
When he started bringing the ball back, we progressed to a 1/2lb dummy and any interest in that was clicked and treated. Just touching it with his nose or picking it up for a split second. I used the shaping method of training with this too as he really enjoys trying to work things out, even though at times he got frustrated.
Most of this was initially done at home inside or in the garden, with little distraction (Albert is easily distracted). We then progressed to higher stimulating environments like the park and out on walks in the forest.
Did you change any other aspect of your training?
Albert is very scent focused so I found that putting the dummy in a bag of feathers helped a lot or even attaching some to the dummy and using a furry rabbit dummy definitely helped and upped his arousal for the dummy.
Was there a turning point? if so, what was it?
The turning point for Albert was when Philippa brought the dummy launcher out! He was like a completely different dog, he was focused and enthusiastic to go out and retrieve the dummy.
Even though I am now confident Albert will retrieve a dummy, I don't like to push him to do more than 3 or 4 at a time as he will lose interest. Now a year down the line with lots of time and work put in and thanks to our fabulous trainer Philippa, Albert is well on his way to becoming a gundog.
What advice would you give other people who are struggling with a reluctant retriever?
My advice is to just keep persevering and practicing little and often and maybe getting the dummy launcher out!
Bodhi the German Shorthaired Pointer- Nicole and Will
Can you briefly describe your starting point in your retrieving journey?
Bodhi our GSP was not interested at all in retrieving. We’d try to make the dummy exciting by moving it all around and then throw the dummy for her and she would run over towards it but not care, she would pounce on it instead. She wouldn’t pick it up or bring it back.
What strategies did you use to get your dog motivated?
We found she was really interested in a tennis ball, so we applied the fetch and retrieve principles to the tennis ball. To get her to bring the ball back we would have a second one that we would move around and make look really appealing so she would bring the ball she had back, to get the one we had. We would reward her for dropping the ball then throw out the other one and keep that going until she was really interested in fetch and retrieve of the ball.
To help with the pouncing we would put the tennis ball around a corner so she wouldn’t be going at it head on. Once she was consistent in bringing the ball back, we tried again with a dummy. Again she wasn’t that interested so we tried different dummy sizes and ones with fur. We would alternate between the ball and the dummies and eventually she put it together.
Did you change any other aspect of your training?
The other issue we have is depending on the environment / dummy (like a fur one) she will prance around instead of bringing it back. To try to combat this we put her on a longline so we can bring her in and try to encourage if she brings it back then she gets to keep playing. This is still an ongoing behaviour we are trying to address!
Was there a turning point? if so, what was it?
The turning point was finding something she was interested in enough that she would go for and switching between that and a dummy until she got the game was get the item and bring it back no matter the item. It took a lot of repetition and building interest in the tennis ball to start.
What advice would you give other people who are struggling with a reluctant retriever?
Don’t give up. It might feel like you aren’t getting anywhere and it’s frustrating but at some point it will click.
Thank you so much to Abi, Karen and Nicole for taking the time to write your answers- I hope that gives other people some ideas!
If you have a reluctant retriever, or want to get started in your gundog training, you can sign up for a 1:1 private session, or a New to Fundog Gundog introductory group session via the website, or drop me a line- philippa@fundoggundog.com
Happy retrieving!
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