# Flunkie Lab Starting to Make Good



## tom sawyer (Feb 1, 2006)

If you recall, I had my 1-yr-old female black Raven lab force-fetched by a local pro. At the end of five weeks he told me she was one of the worst dogs he'd ever trained, completely lacked drive and did not enjoy retrieving. He wouldn't go any farther with her, said it was a waste of my money. He did get her force-fetched though, best money I ever spent. Having been encouraged by some of you (yes it's your fault not mine), I have kept working with her and figured to give her this one season to make good or be shipped out.

Having abandoned hope that the dog was going to be a prodigy, kind of took the pressure off. First thing I tried to do when I got her back, was to make retrieving fun for her. Less pressure to be perfect, more encouragement. More praise for doing it right, less punishment for doign it wrong. I also kept working hard on basic obedience which she was very slow to learn.

Here's the update. She is now 17 months old, her basic obedience is much more solid. She still gets overly excited around strangers and that makes it hard for her to pay attention, I'm working on that. We work on retrieving daily, in the yard and at a nearby pond. I've found that starting with a couple of simple bumper throws gets her excited and ready to work. She comes to my side, sits and only delivers to hand. She won't "drop" unless its to hand, odd but thats her understanding of the command I guess. I can then do a "baseball" drill with three bumpers, I send her towards second and stop her at the pitchers mound with the sit command, then I can direct her to whichever bumper I want with hand signals. She is getting that pretty darned good. I use a Retriev-r-Trainer launcher at least once a session so she is used to the sound of a gun. I can shoot it over the house and she'll do a blind retrieve.

Now and then she still gets flaky about picking up a bumper, like its going to shock her. When I command "fetch" she acts like I've shocked her. She will pick up the bumper though, after rolling it a bit with her paw. I'm sure this is my stupidity in using the e-collar too close to the bumpers in the past.

She does water retrieves well, she doesn't usually power into the water but wades in and swims quickly. I can give her the "sit" command when she's in the water and she will turn and look at me for directions. Thank goodness she doesn't actually sit! I was thjinking of using "whoa" but since "sit" works I suppose I'll just keep it that much simpler for her. I haven't used a whistle.

Teal season opens in a week, we'll see how that goes. I am certain now that she'll do basic retrieves. I still need to do some more "nose" work with her. We've used the launcher in a field of tall weeds a time or two, and she was less than spectacular in finding the scented dummy.

She's a work in progress, but at least there's been some progress.

Lennie


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## USAlx50 (Nov 30, 2004)

Nice work man! Keep it up. Shoot some birds for her and that just might be the ticket to get her eating/sleeping retrieving.

Sounds like a great pet! I miss my dog a ton, cant wait to pick him up in a couple weeks.


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## Nick Roehl (Mar 7, 2002)

For one thing punishment while training a dog to retrieve.What? There is your first mistake. Training should always be fun not just sometimes.


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## mdaniel (May 2, 2007)

tom sawyer
I'm glad to see you have made so much progress. As we posted that some Dawgs take time. But I'm sure that you will find a great hunting buddy, as it sounds like you are on your way.
The one thing I have found about scenting dummies is this.
If you rub it on it does'nt last long. So I use a incelent needle and inject the dummy. Duck scent holds the best, along with Quail.
:thumb: on the Training.


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

She sounds like a nice dog and better trained than many, I would stick to it.

All dogs arent going to be field trial champions, just like all of us aren't going to be champions at anything, that does not mean we cannot be good productive individuals.

Love your dog and continue to take good care of her, that is something you will always be proud you did throughout the rest of your life.

I've had a couple dogs over my 40 years of dog ownership that many of my friends told me I should give up on, some of my best memories include them.

I'm proud of you, good job :beer:


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## tom sawyer (Feb 1, 2006)

Thanks for the encouragement and advice.

I was under the impression that if the dog went out and didn't pick up the dummy when she knew it was expected of her, that it was proper to punish her. I was trying to follow published protocols, although my own frustration and the dog's lagging behind the learning curve probably made for a situation where I did things wrong.

The force-fetch training took care of a lot of problems. It got her to understand that fetch isn't a just suggestion, and I think it helped her as far as OB too. Although, some of it is probably just age and more training sessions. I got some training from the pro as far as what to expect and how to go about OB, so that also made the money spent well worth it.

The pro told me he uses anise extract to do a lot of his scnet training. I have a bottle of Cabela's duck scent and just got the anise (licorice smell) too. I just haven't done too much as far as training to track is concerned, I've been more interested in just getting her to do the basics. I thought the hand signals were a good skill for her to have, but I'm going to focus some training on scnet tracking now.

By the way, I took her hunting as a 7-month-old last year, before her formal training, and she did make some retrieves just not every time. I'm hunting mostly shallow marsh (conservation area wade-and-shoot) so it is pretty easy stuff as far as retrieves.

Raven is also becoming a more well-mannered house pet as her psycho pup stage phases out.


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

a real easy way to teach nose awareness is a old beaglers trick, use hot dogs all dogs love them.

Start easy and build up heres what you do,

1) cook the hot dog let it cool and cut it in half then get a fishing rod, take a hook and hook the hot dog on one end.

2) with out the dog looking cast it about 5 feet across the back yard into the wind note the exact spot it landed( use a rock or something to cast it to so you know where to start in the next step) then slowly reel it in step on it and jerk the hook out, leave the hot dog laying there.

3) now go get your dog on a leash and bring it out to the spot ( marked by the rock) the hotdog landed on your cast and give her a command "Fetch" ( remember you should be upwind of the hot dog now bring you hand down to the spot the hot dog was dragged on so she follows your hand with her nose, she will sniff the hotdog trail and find it in a few second usaully.

4) it may take a few trys but once she figures out that fetch means find something good with her nose she will catch on, now gradually extend the length of the trail a few feet each session until your doing it all the way across the yard.

5) the reason you cast it with the fishing rod is you want her to follow the hot dog scent not your scent.

After a week of so of this she should be relying on her nose to find stuff. get a frozen quail or pigeon and do the whole process over with it. Start close and build up the distance, then make a right angle turn during the retrieve by reeling it half way in and then you move so that the frozen bird changes direction.
Reward her when she finds the bird with a piece of hotdog at first, then over time just with praise, lots of praise. When she succesffully finds the bird and brings it to you don't take it right away instead let her hold it and kneel down and pet her for a minute and tell her what a fine dog she is, just heap on the praise, labs (really all dogs) thrive on praise.

A couple of these a training period is enough, leave her wanting more not tired of it.

Now that shes retrieveing a frozen bird move to a thawed one, after that shes ready to retrieve a shackled duck or pheasant.

Same drill start close then work up to more difficult lengths as she gain experience. praise and repetition...


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## tom sawyer (Feb 1, 2006)

Sounds like a plan, I'll give that a go this weekend. Thanks.


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## tom sawyer (Feb 1, 2006)

Teal season opened last Saturday, I hunted Saturday and Sunday morning in a flooded field. Killed two Saturday, one Sunday. Raven retrieved them all nicely, she didn't mark the first one but she took hand signals reasonably well. Marked the second which was good. Sunday's bird she marked too. Things got slow and when we got up to stretch I causally dropped the dead bird out in the field, then when we were back in teh water and she wasn't looking I fired the gun and then sent her to find the bird whech she did. So we got two retrieves out of that one poor duck.

She is retrieving to hand, and not mouthing the birds at all. I set up with just a chair and we toook turns sitting, she would stay near me in the water and I let her wander in the timber at our back although she stays within about twenty yards of me. Mostly she just sticks pretty much by my side, and she watches whenever she sees any kind of bird which is a good sign.

I'm using the ducks for training in the yard now, hidning them in bushes and having her hunt them up with her nose. I still need to do some work on having her follow a trail, we've done just a bit of that with the hotdog trick. I will probably drag one of the ducks on a string and see if she won't trail it to the hiding place without me giving her hand signals.

Hope yall are having a good teal season too. Skeeters are real bad here in MO, we had a flood and then some rain and they are THICK. I'm wearing a jacket, waders, gloves and two headnets and dousing myself in Off, haven't been eatend alive but it is HOT to wear that stuff when it is 70 degrees plus outside. THe skeeters ate on Raven, I sprayed her lightly with Off the second day and that helped.


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## Goosehunterdog (Jun 12, 2005)

I am also glad to hear that you didn't give up on the pup!!!! For trailing I would suggest getting a live bird..dunk it in a bucket of water and drag it through some weeds leaving feathers at the point of origin..Then plant a dead bird at the end of the trail..


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