Another FF question

Texrab · Post by **Texrab** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 10:50 am

I've been working with a plastic type dumb bell in my FF training. I have went through all the steps and I am impressed with my dogs progress so far. I followed Snips article (Thankd you Brenda). I tried to switch over to a retriever dummy yesterday and he wanted to play and chew on it. Before we started the FF training I used the retriever dummy as as a retreving toy more or less. I think he sees it as a toy now. I know I'm not done with the FF training but wanted to go through all the steps again with the retriever dummy, them onto frozen birds, then the real deal. My question is should use something else instead of the retriever dummy for this step. He still will do all the steps with it but he wants to lay down and chew on it when he brings it back to me. Any advice on this?

EWSIV · Post by **EWSIV** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 3:29 pm

I would find a different (color, size, type) type of dummy to use for force fetch and continue with what you have been doing. Generally speaking, you should not use dummies as toys for this very reason.

mountaindogs · Post by **mountaindogs** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 6:05 pm

Mostly it depends on exactly where you are in the training.
That said, I personally like to use a toy (after the period of resement and all is over and we have moved well beyond all troubles and the dog is confident and knows the drill with the "Buck" in my case. I think it's a nice opportunity to train the dog that he can't mouth, roll, or chew (which hopefully you have already worked on a little with the "buck") when you ask him to "fetch." Might be a good idea to try something else boring first though, and then move to this harder lesson a little later...

My opinion anyway....