Hunting Head Start Tips (1)

Hunting Head Starts


Retrieving:

Your puppy is a versatile dog, bred to love retrieving, and retrieving is a very useful tool for helping your puppy burn some energy, learn to swim well, and a bit later, to reinforce “Whoa.”

There are many schools of thought about training puppies with retrieving. Some people say never tug with your puppy, or you will have a hard mouthed dog. Some say never let them chase a dummy, without a release command or you will have a breaker. Some say never let the puppy “own” the toy, always take it back and put it out of the puppy’s reach. Many wise and experienced trainers bring you these tips, so they certainly have information worth learning. That said, I think all of that is overdone for a puppy. Too many rules and too little fun. But there are many ways that work and I know those folks have trained some amazing dogs using those methods. Here is what works for me.

1) LOVE THE GAME – this is paramount to all else. You can add any number of rules to game and your dog will be happy to learn them if they love the game enough to do anything to get to play.

2) TO TUG or NOT TO TUG. When starting the retrieve work, I do let my puppies do some tugging. They have been playing with their littermates and chase and tug will be what they know and love. This gives you an edge, because they probably already like the tug game a little. You can use this to start teaching them “drop” or “give.” While they are this little you are stronger and you can always win. You can pry open their mouth by pressing your fingers behind the canines on pushing the gums into the mouth and pulling the top of the muzzle up gently. Take the toy out and say “Drop.” Every time you tug you should win, either they drop it on their own or you take it back. They can have this game, but you are teaching them that it is a game, not a power play. AND you are teaching this now, while they are little. That’s why I like to tug a little. Notice in my videos I sometimes use it to build drive. When puppies start to seem less interested I tease and tug to get them involved again.

3) NO ROOM FOR ERROR. Play this game in an enclosed area with no other interesting things to distract the puppy and no way out but to you. Start very small so just a few steps bring them to you. DRIVE comes before all else. Distance and distractions later.

4) SIT DOWN. Puppies know that a puppy or dog who wants to play is low to the ground. A puppy or dog standing tall might be threatening, so it might give your puppy pause if you are standing. Speak dog and get low.

5) CHASING IS A ONE WAY GAME. Never chase your dog when they have the toy, and try hard to avoid chasing them when they have something they shouldn’t. For the dog running off with your shoe, try to offer them something better and get them to trade. If they are running away with a toy, then you can be the runner. Turn away and try running a zig zag playfully away from them as if you have something fun that they will want. Hopefully they will chase you with their toy and you can call them to you, praise them and let them keep the toy while you hold them.

6) A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY. Don’t expect your puppy to play this forever at first. 3-5 very short retrieves may be plenty. Use short little sessions but you can do them several times a day.

If possible, transfer your puppy to a puppy training dummy while you are in this indoor/floor stage if you plan to run NAVHDA Natural Ability.

You are ready to move on when your puppy does not want to quit, gets excited to see the puppy dummy, and you thing the hall or space is too small for how much they want to run. But for now, get this down to perfection.