# Fetch problems



## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

I put Flip through force fetch and thought I had done a good job. I started the initial steps with several different objects (pvc, metal article, bumper), and moved to walking fetch on just bumpers.

Tonight I thought I'd try him on a frozen bird. He went spastic. All he wanted to do was rip it's feathers out. If I put the bird in his mouth and made him hold it he would do okay, but trying to have him fetch it out of my hand or off the ground just resulted in attempts to demolish the birds.

I figured this meant I had to have a weak link back in force fetch somewhere. So I went inside, tried some bumpers, and he did fine. I found an old dokken (something he's never seen before), and although he was 100% on immediately snatching it up, he kept wanting to lay down and chew on it instead of brining it to me or sitting with it. I also tried a soft canvas bumper that he had played with before but never used in force fetch, and again he would snatch it up immediately but kept trying to lay down to chew on it.

So I figured this was where my weak link was. I did a quick review starting from the beginning of FF with the canvas bumper, and within five minutes he was doing fine with it. So I moved back to the Dokken. He was obsessive with the feet. So I covered up the feet, reviewed FF with the body part of the dokken, and he was doing fine. But as soon as I uncovered the feet, he was back to wanting to focus on grabbing at the feet and chewing on them.

So here's my questions:

1. does my thinking seem to be on the right track that this problem area is probably a big part of the problem that I saw on birds? 

2. If I continue doing FF on the Dokken, would I want to focus on encouraging him to grab it by the body, or allow him to grab it by the feet and enforce not allowing him to chew them?

3. When he grabs an object and attempts to lay down with it to chew on it, do I treat that as a failure to retrieve or a failure to come/sit?

4. Any tips on steps I should take?


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## Swampcollie (Sep 6, 2007)

You may want to revisit the "Hold" command. 
He should hold items firmly without chewing on them.


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## DNL2448 (Feb 13, 2009)

Well, I am not going to presume to know the answer, as I would need to defer to the experts, however, you were 100% correct to go back to the beginning with the new objects. I myself would encourage the proper hold on the Dokken vs. allowing him to grab the feet. 

So, without further ado, I bump up so maybe one of the experts can see this as I'll be interested in the answer as well. Flip sounds like a fun pup!


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## RedDogs (Jan 30, 2010)

FF is not within my area of experience...so this might be way off the wall. What about doing a retrieve with food items (...frozen biscuit/hotdog in fish hose/cheese stick in wrapper...) progressing to more exciting things? Or items with feathery/sticky outy bits? Like the rings that have lots of dangly fleece strips or furry-feathery cat toys? 

I have no idea what will happen when I finally am able to find/get birds... the food and cat toys really helped our solid holds.


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## GoldenSail (Dec 30, 2008)

I will be very interested to read the responses as I feel like I have a similar problem. Best of luck!


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## EvanG (Apr 26, 2008)

How did you go about force fetching? What steps, method, etc?

EvanG


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## AmberSunrise (Apr 1, 2009)

Swampcollie said:


> You may want to revisit the "Hold" command.
> He should hold items firmly without chewing on them.


This would be my first thing as well - Hold is hold. My Faelan attempted the 'eat the birdie' thing the 1st time he got one and reviewing and proofing 'hold' helped him learn that hold is hold is hold.

Having said that however, please know I am certainly no expert in field work  So consider this bumped for the experts


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## rappwizard (May 27, 2009)

EvanG said:


> How did you go about force fetching? What steps, method, etc?
> 
> EvanG


I have Evan's video (well, one of them) and he goes through teaching "hold" on a black lab who likes to mouth a paint roller--the black lab likes to do it because he's very excited and happy about fetching and retrieving--maybe the duck amps up your golden's fetch drive a bit, which is good, but that you need to control it?


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## EvanG (Apr 26, 2008)

Regarding "re-visiting Hold", it is my firm belief that you should re-visit that, and all other aspects of FF every training day. Not that you should conduct FF sessions everyday, but rather that you should observe any faults in the dog's mouth habits and maintain high standards at all times.

The behaviors we train into our dogs during FF are manmade, and so will need maintaintenance over the dog's working career. The more observant and persistent you are at this, the less actual maintenance will be required.

EvanG


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

EvanG said:


> How did you go about force fetching? What steps, method, etc?
> 
> EvanG


I started on a table. Taught hold first. Once he understood hold, we began with him taking from my hand, and introduced ear pinch. Worked objects lower and lower until the were on the table. Moved object to various locations on the table. At that point I moved him to the floor, beginning again with him taking from my hand and moving object down to floor, then various distances from him, and finally walking fetch. He seems to be doing just fine with the bumpersIt is his natural tendency to mouth objects, but I do keep a firm reign on that and keep on top of him, and rarely see him try to mouth bumpers anymore since we started working on hold. But when the duck came out he was totally over the top. If I put it in his mouth for him he would hold it, but if I asked him to take it from my hand or the ground he would try to rip pieces off of it instead of wanting to hold the whole thing. He seemed to view it as a toy that he wanted to shake, tug, and tear apart. And he was so intense about it I couldn't get him to do otherwise with it. That's when I threw the duck out (literally threw it out - it was all torn up) and went back to other objects. And now I'm not sure what to do.


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## DNL2448 (Feb 13, 2009)

Okay, totally off the wall, please don't bash me for my suggestion, maybe the pros can give their opinion, but what if you put the duck in a nylon stocking until he gets use to the smell, texture, etc.?


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## EvanG (Apr 26, 2008)

So, no Stick Fetch, no e-collar conditioning to Fetch, no force to pile?

EvanG


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

EvanG said:


> So, no Stick Fetch, no e-collar conditioning to Fetch, no force to pile?
> 
> EvanG


I did e-collar condition to fetch once we were on the ground. I didn't really do force to pile, more like force to the same bumper many times (I'm still nervous about sending to a pile before he's introduced to scent discrimination work). I didn't do stick fetch, I will go back and do that.


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## AmberSunrise (Apr 1, 2009)

Loisiana said:


> I didn't do stick fetch, I will go back and do that.


Field newbie question:

Can someone explain what stick fetch is?

Thanks


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## DNL2448 (Feb 13, 2009)

Sunrise said:


> Field newbie question:
> 
> Can someone explain what stick fetch is?
> 
> Thanks


From what I understand, is you require (as part of force fetch) your dog to fetch an item while you are tapping your dog with a heeling stick. First you just lightly tap them, then you start applying a little more pressure with the stick. They should still fetch and not worry about the stick distraction.


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## AmberSunrise (Apr 1, 2009)

DNL2448 said:


> From what I understand, is you require (as part of force fetch) your dog to fetch an item while you are tapping it with a heeling stick. First you just lightly tap them, then you start applying a little more pressure with the stick. They should still fetch and not worry about the stick distraction.


Thanks. That helps a lot


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

Okay, I did some stick fetch with Flip tonight. I thought it might throw him off at least a couple of times, but he never did seem distracted at all. I tap with dowels a lot in obedience to get him to move his body the correct way, so I guess that carried over. I did get a more focused, harder charging retrieve.


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## Swampcollie (Sep 6, 2007)

Loisiana said:


> Okay, I did some stick fetch with Flip tonight. I thought it might throw him off at least a couple of times, but he never did seem distracted at all. I tap with dowels a lot in obedience to get him to move his body the correct way, so I guess that carried over. I did get a more focused, harder charging retrieve.


Yes, but what did he do with objects once he had them in his mouth? Did he have a solid firm hold? Was there any rolling or mouthing the objects?


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## EvanG (Apr 26, 2008)

Loisiana said:


> I did e-collar condition to fetch once we were on the ground. *I didn't really do force to pile*, more like force to the same bumper many times (I'm still nervous about sending to a pile before he's introduced to scent discrimination work). I didn't do stick fetch, I will go back and do that.


I don't know how much benefit there will be to stick fetch at this point. But force-to-pile is where the fully trained retrieve reaches final assembly. It puts fundamental obedience tasks and the trained aspects of fetching together in their highest functioning state. With this set of tools you can then effectively force on birds, larger bumpers, artificial game birds, etc. The dog will be functioning within a familiar framework, and working by the rules you have set for him. That's the best reason for doing a thorough job of it.

EvanG


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

Swampcollie said:


> Yes, but what did he do with objects once he had them in his mouth? Did he have a solid firm hold? Was there any rolling or mouthing the objects?


There was no problem with the hold. When I tried it with a dokken I covered up the feet with duct tape so he wouldn't grab that part. So I don't know what he would have done if he had access to the feet.


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