Positive only?

[Bob Barnett]

A scenario I have seen more than once. Riddle me this Jen.
Miss Molly Minivan comes to a hunt test. He totally in tune with her Golden Retriever Muffy runs out and gets its first live flier. Molly does not have a group to train with and does not belong to a club. She uses no birds in training. Muffy is for some reason birdy as heck and when it gets to that bird, it is like Ray Lewis in a deer antler shop! Muffy grabs that fresh duck and instead of running straight back to Molly runs to the live gunners and circles them a couple times. Then runs to the gallery and shows the duck to all. Then circles the judges a few times in a full and proper victory lap. And then instead of handing Molly the bird runs to the parking area and sits by the door of the minivan ready to go home.
Handle this how, will you?
BTW I been typing about Miss Molly Minivan for about 98 years here on the RTF (we count in dog years here) so this hypothetical scenario in no way reflects you or your training activities or choice of motor vehicles pr retriever breeds. Just a funny happenstance, it is.
Yet the question is valid and not rhetorical.
How would you counsel Molly?

This doesn't have anything to do with positive training. This was just a lack of training. That could very well happen to a poorly trained forced dog.

[gdgnyc]

Jen

My helper was the newspaper delivery boy. I hired him to help me. Kids don't deliver papers anymore so now it's a little harder.

[Jennifer Henion]

Jen

My helper was the newspaper delivery boy. I hired him to help me. Kids don't deliver papers anymore so now it's a little harder.

I am lucky that my husband is a willing participant. There's no way my friends would help. Touching dead birds is not part of their reality.

[rmilner]

For the dog playing keep away with dummy, there are two solutions. Either will generally work:

1. Take the dummy out of the equation and give the dog a number of reinforcements for coming to you. Take him for a hike and periodically call him to you and give him a treat. Make sure it is a high value treat to the dog. Obviously the reward will not be a dummy. You can also increase the treat value further by making sure the dog is hungry. After 30 or 40 high value reinforcements for coming to you from various distances and various locations, add the dummy back in. You can think of the dummy as simply another distraction level.

or

2. Find a large area, far from automobiles and throw the dog a dummy. When he picks it up, simply turn and walk away from him. Keep walking until he catches up with you. Keep your mouth shut and make no noise. That activity simply tells pup where you are. It may take 40 yards or it may take 100 yds, but pup will look up and see you leaving and come find you. When he arrives, take the dummy (with no movement toward him) and tell him thank you for the nice delivery to hand. Wait a second or two and then give him a treat. I have never had to do the walk away act more than three times with a dog to have him coming proficiently with dummy in mouth. Many people tend to interpret these instructions as walk away 30 feet and then stop and call the pup. The correct process is keep walking silently until pup catches you, then while you are still walking in the same direction, reach down and take the dummy.

[KwickLabs]

Here's the way I approach "keep away". Make it a non-issue.

"Here" first...then "Fetch"

[Colonel Blimp]

Polmaise posted

The recent Five nations results must have you 'cockahoop' and feeling positive ?..

Robert, I'm somewhat underwhelmed by Rugby; however as an Anglo Irishman living in wildest Wales I have a foot in many camps and can turn my coat as the situation demands. The village pub is as you might expect, a hotbed of the Taffia.

If I could trade England's Grand Slam for ten points for the Villa, Wales can bury 'em at The Millenium with my blessing!

Eug

[DarrinGreene]

Polmaise posted Robert, I'm somewhat underwhelmed by Rugby; however as an Anglo Irishman living in wildest Wales I have a foot in many camps and can turn my coat as the situation demands. The village pub is as you might expect, a hotbed of the Taffia.

If I could trade England's Grand Slam for ten points for the Villa, Wales can bury 'em at The Millenium with my blessing!

Eug

Eug what the heck are you doing posting this foreign language at 10 am??

[Colonel Blimp]

Darrin,

You think that's difficult to interpret, just wait until me and crackerd get going in our native dialect, Brummie. What follows may not be fully clear at first reading because I've had to delete all the expletives which in Brummagem serve as punctuation marks.

'Islot am orlrite but weem agooin dowun the suff. The Toffees stuffed the Baggies Sarrerdy, burrit do marrer, theym saefe. The vanilla am in the browun stuff.

Gorrit? 'Tae 'ard. This am we Un thissens issn.

Eug

[gdgnyc]

Last sentence is Deutsch.

Darrin, don't you sleep?

[gdgnyc]

Here's the way I approach "keep away". Make it a non-issue.

"Here" first...then "Fetch"

Thanks, Jim. Have you trained any puppies where teaching the command "here" wasn't so easy to do? And if you did, how did you resolve the problem? I would like to have many tools available for this.