[DarrinGreene]

The dog has 3 years practice not reliably fetching - patience required.

Did you do pressure on/pressure off obedience training or are you introducing the concept with the HOLD command?

 

[DarrinGreene]

You really ought to seek some in person help with a dog this age if you've never done this before. If there's a retriever club nearby, I would look into it.

There are a bunch of ways to get this process going. Everything from what you're doing to clicker training (yes clicker training) can be employed. Some creativity with a 3 yo might be required.

I asked about pressure on/pressure off in OB because it would really help the dog to understand that "compliance releases pressure" with some known commands, like sit and come, before you introduce it with something new like "hold".

Just my philosophy - many retriever training programs actually introduce the "pressure/release" concept with the "hold" command. I just think it goes a lot easier if the dog already understands the reinforcement method and only has to learn the behavior we want. Trying to teach new behavior with a new reinforcement method just adds stress to the situation, if you ask me.

We always say "never use pressure to reinforce a command the dog doesn't know". That all goes out the window in a lot of programs when we get to the hold/ff routine.