Retriever Training

I've been working more on getting Bandit to retrieve birds to me. Sometimes he will bring them to within 5 feet of me and drop them, but if he sees that I'm close enough to grab the bird myself, he'll just stand next to it (if it's dead) or hold it down (if it's alive).

In the yard, he's an absolute retrieving fool. I can go out at night, pick up a stick, and throw it into a big pile of other sticks and he'll find the one that I threw. In the dark. Crazy. Tennis balls, raquetballs, frizbees...he fetches all of them perfectly. We even use him as a catcher when we play baseball outside!

He gets REALLY excited when I get out the dummies, and I've had trouble with him not returning immediately because he wants to play with the dummy, especially if there are pheasant wings attached. He also doesn't like to give it back, and will move his mouth away from me so I can't get it from him. It's really been a source of frustration for me, but I think we had a breakthrough last night.

I made him sit while I threw the dummy into some tall grass and sent him for the retrieve. He disappeared into the grass and started searching. I assumed he was still looking for the dummy, when I realized he was right next to me, dummy in mouth. I praised him and let him hold onto it for a while, then took it from him without issue.

Wanting to see if it was a fluke, I made him sit and threw the dummy again. As I watched him, he ran out to the dummy, picked it up, and made a big circle back to me. Again I let him hold it in his mouth for a bit, and he gave it up with no fuss.

It seems that all he wants is more time with the dummy in his mouth, a desire I can hardly fault him for. Previously, I would call him back to me immediately after I saw him pick up the dummy, and he would start playing around with it. It seems that if I don't say anything, he'll bring it back just fine. He obviously knows what is expected of him, and if letting him take a round-about route back to me with dummies/birds is what it takes to have him retrieving reliably, I'm OK with that.

Many trainers wouldn't find this an acceptable solution, but I personally like a bit of "attitude" in my dog, and if taking an extra 3 seconds to retrieve a bird makes him happy, I'm fine with it.

I've got two pheasants in the freezer, so I'll start working on those after another week or so of good retrieves on the dummies.