Lab retrieving help

[ducksdogsdownriggers]

A few years back my wife adopted a 4 year old female Lab that was a rescue dog.  She was horribly neglected. To put it in perspective, she weighed 28lbs when taken to the vet.  She is a healthy, happy, dog now.  But, at 4 years she had zero training, not even the basics, sit, come, etc, much less any hunting dog training.  All that has come, and after 2+ years of work, she is a serviceable duck dog.  She does have one habit that I can't quite figure out how to change:  when she gets the bird to shore she drops it and either comes to me without the bird, or starts retrieving other downed birds, and will do the same with them.  Any tips on how I can get her to bring the bird to me???  No problem bringing the bird to hand on land, just on a water retrieve... 

Oh, I do have another lab, and every one of my hunting buddies has at least one good dog, so this is more of a labor of love and a challenge than necessity. 

[Fowlweather25]

Work on her with a bumper. Make sure she brings it to you every time! When she does what you want reward the livin heck out of her. I have a lab that used to dothe same thing youre talking about. Start out with a small simple treat every time she brings it to you. Then fade away from the treat so she doesn't expect it every time. It's gonna take a quite a bit of repetition but she's a lab! once she gets the hang of it it's second nature.


Oh and if she doesn't bring it to you. Try going to her a few times. Reward her when you get the bumper. It'll help her correlate the atta girls with her being at your feet giving youth bird! good luck man! Feel free to pm me if you have any more issues. I'm not a pro but my wife has worked as a trainer and I've had to o. Lot of trouble shooting if my own.

[vandeman17]

We had a similar problem with my old choc lab. It didn't bother me tons except when she would bring back a cripple and then drop it at the edge and I would have to run after the dang thing.  My cousin, who is a trainer, told me to just take birds and put them into her mouth and tell her to hold, then give her whatever drop command we used. Once she got used to that, I would just wait at the water's edge and when she got close, I would tell her to hold and slowly back up until she got to me. This seemed to work pretty well in training but I never got to put it to full use because as soon as I started working on it with her, my parents ended up moving and taking her to Texas.

[seth30]

My lab does that with his tennis balls as well, yeah its funny when he drops a cripple and has to catch it again. 

[Camp David]

That is a normal lab trait. Start close to the shore and get the dog to give you the bumper at the shore line. Lots of praise. Repeat 100 time and take one step back repeat 100 time take another step back..................
Labs also want to shake as soon as they leave the water...complicates the problem a little more. Forced fetch will also help a lot.

[goosegetter79]

That is a normal lab trait. Start close to the shore and get the dog to give you the bumper at the shore line. Lots of praise. Repeat 100 time and take one step back repeat 100 time take another step back..................
Labs also want to shake as soon as they leave the water...complicates the problem a little more. Forced fetch will also help a lot.

What exactly is "forced fetch"?

[CP]

Sounds like your dog has been through enough in her short life, I’d spare her the force fetch training.

[gasman]

Sounds like your dog has been through enough in her short life, I’d spare her the force fetch training.

Why 

[BlueDevilBrew]

Yep as others have said force fetch will fix this problem. Going through it successfully means they won't give up that bird for anything until you take it out of their mouth. I'd suggest finding a trainer to do this if you're a novice.

[pjb3]

My thought is teach her, not to old to learn and they love learning

[Fishnclifff]

My lab is in the same boat.
I go in the water with him and keep repeating the command " Me". Same with a bumper.
He now brings it to me and either puts it in my hand or floats it to me.
Sometimes, on a long retrieve he will pass me and get on shore and wait for me. When I say drop, he puts it in my hand, or drops it on the ground.
He is 8 yrs old, spent his whole life in a crate, so I cut him some slack and call it a good retrieve.
He is dead on every retrieve and shows so much emotion and joy wanting to hunt, I just cheer him on.

[ducksdogsdownriggers]

Thanks guys.  I went out yesterday afternoon and made an effort to go out in the water and meet her on her retrieves-it really started to make a difference.  After the first couple birds she started heading straight for me.  I think by next season I can have this issue fixed.   Here's a pic from a previous hunt...

[Wacenturion]

During the summer, or anytime off season when it's nice, take her out and use dummies at the lake, pond wherever.  Fun time, they love it.  However when she gets to shore turn away and start walking.  As she closes the distance slow down slightly so she doesn't notice and she be right next to you with the dummy.  Stop, as you take the dummy try to get her to sit.  I'll explain later.

Repeat, repeat, repeat.  After many repeats, even on a few different days, start out doing the same for say two or three times and then don't walk away.  Stay right where you tossed the dummy from.  Likely she will come right to ya, dummy in mouth.  If she is trained to walk at heal and sit as I mentioned earlier, it makes it much easier to get them to come around and sit at heal and hand over the goods.

Back in my field trial days I would help new guys try to get their dogs to do this.  A finishing touch.  Walking at heal is the real first step.  If she isn't used to that, I suggest you just take walks with a dummy to begin with.  Walk different distances, slow down, say sit and take dummy.  Give her back the dummy and start walking again.  Vary your distance each time.  Repeat for a day or two, or until you are comfortable she understands the heal, sit, and you taking the dummy exercise you are doing.  The key is patience.  Don't rush it. 

So much of training a dog is understanding how.  You are basically spending a couple fun days and several hours sitting them up to be successful, if you get my drift.  Every dog is different and so is every trainer.  The fun and the eventual success is designing an approach on how to get them there.

If you want her to come around and sit before handing bird off, then start with the walking drill.  If you're just interested in her bringing it to you, just use the walk away at the water drill.

Of course the ultimate is having a trained retriever come back to you, come around, sit and deliver bird, and as you back off a couple steps you say..."shake off" and you don't get wet every time.  Just how much time one wants to invest is the question. 

Good luck.