Can’t really fetch

[Atemas]

Red is now 2 and a little bit. She is maturing really well, is great in the house and out and about (bar the odd bit of reactivity) can do lots and lots of things. I am very proud of her. She is very loving and funny and clever but...

.......she can’t retrieve. I suppose it’s not really a bit deal but I think I would like to systematically teach her. I have a goal of getting a basic retrieve by the time I do the one off gundog workshop in April with her. I have just found the video @Beanwood put on ‘Clicker Training a Bird Dog Retrieve’ and think I am going to do that.

She loves her toys and will fetch her favourites and will usually (not always) drop when asked but anything else nope. I throw the clam - she eagerly awaits (she is very patient) the cue to ‘get it’ and eat the treats inside but she will not bring the clam back. I feel a bit stuck.

 

[snowbunny]

You need to work on the individual parts of the retrieve separately before bringing them together. So you can work on the hold, and you can work on a hand target without anything in her mouth, then combine them, then add distance and duration etc etc etc, before you even think about the beginning part.
Working from the end of the chain first is called “back chaining” and is a really effective method for training complicated behaviour chains.

I heard a good explanation a little while ago on one of the podcasts, where the person talked about learning a poem. Most of the time, people try to learn from the start, and when they come to recite it, they will start confidently, but become less sure as they progress. A better way to learn is to take it line by line from the end, and hook on a new line to the start each time; that way, you become MORE confident as you progress through the poem, as you have practiced those end parts more than the beginning, because of the back-chaining method.
That’s the same effect we want with our retrieve; the dog has practiced the delivery part so much that that doesnt need any thought, and we just hook more stuff on to the beginning.

 

[Atemas]

Thank you @snowbunny forsuch a quick response. Yes the back chaining analogy makes sense.
She does a perfect ‘touch’ on my hand when I ask her. She really presses her nose in hard on whichever hand I hold out - is this what you mean by hand target?

 

[snowbunny]

Yes, that’s it. So I would next train a hold (first touching the object while it’s in your hand, then working towards her opening her mouth, then putting her mouth around it while you continue to hold it too, add duration, start to release your grip etc etc etc).
Once she has a very solid hold so she will pick up the object and not drop it until you give your drop cue, you can introduce the hand target. So you would have her hold the object then put your hand out, click for her looking at it, then turning her head towards it, then moving towards it, then pushing the object into it.

Once that part is really strong, you can start to add a bit of distance. This part tends to go pretty quickly, because the dog understands by this point that picking up the toy and pushing it into your hand is the name of the game.

 

[Atemas]

Aah thank you @snowbunny. Just found my clicker, so all ready to start this today