Retrieving to hand....except for bumpers out of the water

[jfranci3]

I have a 2 yr old Portuguese Water Dog house pet. She's great - energetic and obedient. I'm getting so odd behavior I don't understand though.

Daily, I have her retrieve sticks out of the water for exercise. I've recently introduced canvas bumper to our retrieving routine, upgrading from sticks. Retrieving is not pre-installed software on her,so we stuck with sticks until I knew the bumpers would come back. The problem with the sticks is availability and visibility. The white bumper is highly visible in the water. The bumper is a retrieving-only item and not like anything else we have. There's only one dog.

Here's the problem - Retrieving the bumper on land, she retrieves it to hand; retrieving sticks out of the water, to the hand; retrieving the bumper out of the water she won't bring it to me. She'll stay 30feet away and hold on to it. If I yell at her a bit, she'll bring it 10ft from me and drop it, walking to me without it. I don't think it's because she wants to chew on it or play keep-away. She really enjoys holding onto it like nothing I've seen her with. I also don't believe she's tired because I've seen her swim for 3 hours straight (we were wading in 3ft deep water in lake Huron).

[RoostersMom]

Tighten up your obedience with the dog. Here means here. Not 30 feet away. Ignore the bumper/retrieve thing and focus on her recall. Get her reliably recalling to you - then go back with the bumper and do retrieves and enforce the "here means here" rule. Whether she drops the bumper or not, here means right here, right now. Are you grabbing the dummy from her when she brings it in or are you letting her prance around carrying it? Sometimes they won't bring it to you - anticipating that you'll snatch it away. Try letting her hold on to it for quite a while - during that time, you're petting and praising her - if she drops it, you stop all praise.

Force fetching will also fix this issue, but I truly think if you get her snappy on the recall, the rest will work itself out. If it doesn't, then a proven system of FF will fix your issues.

[jfranci3]

Thanks. May have to look at the forced recall.

She's 100% and immediate on recall with the exception of the bumper out of the water. She really doesn't care about praise and attention as much as she cares about the next round.

[DonF]

+1

Also, you walk into the water and try it again. She may surprize you. If she's still in the water she probably won't spit it out. And get in the water a ways, not just up to your ankles. Go for at least the knees.

[polmaise]

DonF ,You will have your good friend Trekmoor pulling what's left of his hair out with that suggestion

[Trekmoor]

I just do what works and don't do what doesn't work. In this dogs case the problem seems to be the land and not the water so I might try getting the dog to deliver to me in the water before doing my usual thing of moving well away from the water as the dog exits it to prevent shaking and dummy dropping.

I notice the O.P. mentioned he shouted at the dog ? That is very unlikely to encourage a dog into you with a dummy. What seems to be lacking is a solid recall after the dog has left the water. The training dummy seems to be of much higher "value" to the dog than the sticks previously used ........perhaps because the dummy is of higher value to the O.P. and the dog has recognised this ???

I'd probably try changing the retrieve article both in shape and in texture and see how the dog behaves with that if the owner casually walks away as the dog emerges from the water. Failing all that , F.F. would "cure" this problem if the O.P. feels confident and competent enough to go down that route.
Something you try will work, it always does if you try the right thing for the individual dog.

Bill T.

[Francois P vd Walt]

Bill T I agree find what works and stay with it....

FF will be the answer here in most cases retrieving becomes a game it should be fun I agree, however is is a command not a choice.

O.P instead of raising your voice when the dog does not come to you when he is out of the water walk away and keep walking until the dog is really close to you go down on one knee start by praising then recall. Do not stand to close to the waters edge when doing water work you can also do a retrieve and keep walking on the waters edge dog will follow with bumper until he walks next to you, then praise then take bumper. Do not take bumper first from dog on a retrieve first praise by rubbing his head or patting the back and chest then take bumper. If none of these work FF will be the only answer.

Remember to have fun

[Swampbilly]

Seems like it should be the other way 'round- you'd think pup would run off with that juicy stick a distance and lay down to chew on it.

If it were me ( depending on your goals w/the dog) , I'd consider dumping the stick stuff and get pup weaned off of that. Sticks are economical..but are mighty hard to mark from 100yds away...

[bhulisa]

Previous posts all good advice. Follow that advice

Also, you might try simply throwing the dummy at the water's edge - not in the water - and see if you can't develop the delivery from there. Sort of reverse the process for success (maybe!). If this works, keep it up for a while to develop a pattern, then throw back into the water, not far at first, increasing distance as the dog becomes more reliable.

You will probably find a similar problem with birds - the highest value object of all!

[DonF]

I suspect that when you remove the stick and the retrieving dummy, things are gonna change. Stick a bird in the dog's mouth and probably won't spit it. Of course then you need to be sure the dog will come to you. I used to use dummy's but now I get started with them and switch to frozen pigeons, or what ever bird I might have around. Dog's don't spit out birds as quick as sticks and dummy's. Thaw the bird about a half hour before using,.

[Nutmeg247]

Tighten up your obedience with the dog. Here means here. Not 30 feet away. Ignore the bumper/retrieve thing and focus on her recall. Get her reliably recalling to you - then go back with the bumper and do retrieves and enforce the "here means here" rule. Whether she drops the bumper or not, here means right here, right now. Are you grabbing the dummy from her when she brings it in or are you letting her prance around carrying it? Sometimes they won't bring it to you - anticipating that you'll snatch it away. Try letting her hold on to it for quite a while - during that time, you're petting and praising her - if she drops it, you stop all praise.

[bolded for emphasis] Force fetching will also fix this issue, but I truly think if you get her snappy on the recall, the rest will work itself out. If it doesn't, then a proven system of FF will fix your issues.

I bolded what I think is key. This is a household pet, though, so I'd ask, before considering force-fetch, both what his goals are for the dog and what the base of obedience training so far has been. Is he doing retrieving just for fun and exercise, does he want to use the dog for some hunting, etc.?

I'd add to the bolded section his giving the dummy back to her right after he takes it, and then taking it again but only to do another quick throw, so she sees she gets rewarded for bringing the bumper back.

There are other ways to motivate the hold part of the retrieve, along with the recall, that don't involve force-fetch. But, since the dog is retrieving already, I don't know that targeted work using those would be worth the time, either, unless it's really important to the o.p. to get a full-formed and polished retrieve sequence.

[aulrich]

One thing I had to learn is that pet dog obedience, and working dog obedience are two different things with mine the tighter here, heel and sit got the better his retrieves got. Water adds a layer of complexity, with the tendency to drop and shake among others. I did run mine through a force fetch program there are a number of good ones out there and I consider doing it as a good investment of time.

When I started my FF program I thought I have a good level of OB, I didn’t. For me it took the use of an e-collar so that is something to consider, it depends what you are doing with your dog. Even if the dog is just a pet dog, doing formal OB has many benefits the biggest is you have your dog under control so you can keep it safer. And a benefit of a retriever program to the non-hunter is that the dog will get mental stimulation as well as physical exercise which will help make the dog a better house dweller since it has constructive places to blow off steam.

[EvanG]

I have a 2 yr old Portuguese Water Dog house pet. She's great - energetic and obedient. I'm getting so odd behavior I don't understand though.

Choose a proven program and get started on formalizing obedience. Thoroughly force fetch this dog, but learn what that entails first. You really need to understand your goals. Stop throwing sticks, which can needlessly injure your dog. Don't lose any more time!

EvanG