Newbie training question on Casting- Help??
Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2015 3:52 pm
Hi all. I'm new to the forum, and new to dog training. So greetings from Minnesota.
I have a 14 month old lab, my first hunting dog. She is extremely enthusiastic about retrieving. She went through obedience and force fetch with a professional trainer, with loads of re-enforcement by myself. We have the basics down, and now I'm taking a stab at teaching casting myself. I am working from "home plate", with her on the "pitchers mound", throwing dummies to the side and back, teaching hand signals. Side to side is no problem. But when I throw behind her, she turns and looks at the dummy every time and will not look back at me. She is fixed like a heat-seeking missile on that dummy. I can't show her the "back" signal because she's not looking. Obviously I messed up a some point. She does sit on whistle, and generally looks back at me when it's blown, unless of course she knows there's a dummy out there.
Can anyone lend any advice as to how I can correct this issue?
Thanks!
Dan
I have a 14 month old lab, my first hunting dog. She is extremely enthusiastic about retrieving. She went through obedience and force fetch with a professional trainer, with loads of re-enforcement by myself. We have the basics down, and now I'm taking a stab at teaching casting myself. I am working from "home plate", with her on the "pitchers mound", throwing dummies to the side and back, teaching hand signals. Side to side is no problem. But when I throw behind her, she turns and looks at the dummy every time and will not look back at me. She is fixed like a heat-seeking missile on that dummy. I can't show her the "back" signal because she's not looking. Obviously I messed up a some point. She does sit on whistle, and generally looks back at me when it's blown, unless of course she knows there's a dummy out there.
Can anyone lend any advice as to how I can correct this issue?
Thanks!
Dan