The retrieve.... oh the retrieve... ;)

[elisabeth_00117]

Zefra has a pretty firm hold already, and has been working the dumbbell for awhile, just got to put things together for her. Waiting to go back to our trainer for that though.

[schh3fh2]

My opinion (for what it is worth) is that you need to go back and reinforce the hold also. The biggest mistake I see people make is they teach a nice calm hold when the dog is completely out of drive and sitting calmly in front. Then they go outside throw the dumbbell, the dogs drive comes up, they run out grab it, run back and chew like ****....The dog needs to learn to hold firm IN DRIVE.



My current competition dog is VERY handler sensitive also, especially when I am teaching and he doesn't understand....But you do not need a lot of force, just whatever it takes for him to understand that is not what you want (could be just verbal) A correction only needs to be enough to make an impression on the dog...



Sounds like you have taught the hold nicely, now you have to gradually raise the drive and reinforce a calm hold until you get to full drive levels. I do this with a dowel (so not related to DB), as a lot of people do, and after I have a solid hold just calm off the field, then I put the dowel in my vest. After training some obedience (where he is in drive and panting some) I go calm again and have him hold now even though he is panting some and has been in drive. Then I end the set. I do this everyday at the end of obedience for a while. I lengthen the obedience set more and more. Then when he is holding really good when he is more panting and more tired (from longer obedience sets and playing) I incorporate the dowel into the middle of my obedience, I will pull out the dowel, put him in drive for the ball with some misses, and him going crazy to get the ball, then I put the ball behind my back and show him the dowel and say hold. Gradually at first, maybe I just show him the ball, put it away and show him dowel and say hold, click and out comes the ball. Then gradually build to misses and crazy drive. Once he understands, he attacks the dowel and sits calm in front holding calm.... Now you have shown him to get into drive to go out , pick up, come back and then sit calm and hold calm......It becomes much clearer to the dog and produces a much better over all retrieve.... I always get good points with my retrieves. Unfortunately I do not have any videos showing this, but I do have a video where I go next after the dowel work is done and I am working on retrieves where I can reward, the pickup, the fast turn, the fast return and hold.....

Diesel Obedience 10 30 2010 - YouTube

Diesel Obedience 10 30 2010 - YouTube

Hope this helps some

Frank

[BlackthornGSD]

Great information, Frank--that makes perfect sense, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about it so clearly.

[robk]

Franks advice is very good and gave me some good tips that I already started using with my dog on the retrieve today.

[Wild Wolf]

Originally Posted by schh3fh2

My current competition dog is VERY handler sensitive also, especially when I am teaching and he doesn't understand....But you do not need a lot of force, just whatever it takes for him to understand that is not what you want (could be just verbal) A correction only needs to be enough to make an impression on the dog...

Frank

Now I know where it comes from.