A friend of mine has a 17 month old GWP which he only had since she was about 8 months old. at first she would run off and not come back but he has overcome this. She loves to fetch the ball but he finds it frustrating that she drops it a couple of metres away from him. She will not bring it right back. he has tried using food as reward but if she knows he has food she will not retrieve at all. Has anyone any tips I can pass on to tighten up her retrieve.
Thanks
Sue

Hi Sue,

Have you heard of a Clicker Retrieve? It may be worth a go, it uses back chaining to make the dog understand the final bit of the exercise as a starting point..if that makes sense?! So you begin by getting the dog to hold the dummy/ball for a second in it mouth, very gently and rewarding with touch and voice(a clicker can be used if they like) along the way, gradually building up the time(so the dog would just be sitting holding the article in front of you) so eventually the dog will do and get the article, wherever it may be, in order to present it to you as he/she has learnt that is what they are rewarded for.
Hope that makes sense, I never had a problem with my young HWV bringing the dummy to hand but we have just gone through the silly stage of running off with it, he is just 10 months so maybe its an age thing, and he seems to be coming round to the idea of a good retrieve now!
It also might be worth mentioning that the article shouldn't be grabbed straight from the dogs mouth as this may be making it reluctant to bring it right in, I also(try!) and get him as close in as possible, usually against my leg, sideways(!) and give him a really good fuss and put on my 'silly' voice before I tell him 'dead'. We will move onto a 'proper' present at some point btu I'm happy that it just comes back to within 5 metres of me :D
I know a good forum where the Clicker retrieve is explained throughly, if you PM me I'll pass on the addy for you to have a look see, I know alot of people have found it works wonders
HTH
Emily :)

I'd agree clicker training would solve this, done the correct way :)

I've seen many breeds do retrieves trained with a clicker. If you want to see how it works, get a copy of Karen Pryor's "Clicker training for dogs" and you can see the step by step photos of a whippet being taught to retrieve.

I'd also suggest your friend doesn't throw the ball if the dog just drops it, as the dog is then being rewarded for dropping the ball... also, she may be using food wrongly :P (there is an art to using food correctly in training).

Best of luck,
Lindsay
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I would absolutely agree with trying the clicker retrieve.

Train the dog to touch the hand with its nose for food.

Once this is established you can generalise this over with the dog holding the article and touching the hand, click and treat.

This way the dog becomes conditioned to recall to the flat of your hand which is useful for all sorts of disciplines.

Yep, that's one of the things i learnt a while ago at Anne's :D
Before, I used the clicker to get a retrieve of sorts (ie dog holding the article) but it's soo much easier with the dog actually targetting the hand - I love it!!! :P

Lindsay
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