doggy-dumbell help

Cahill

Cahill

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so,Jim is 11 months old.
he now brings his ball back to be throwed again and brings his raggy back to me as well.
when he brings his raggy back,we have a little tug game and he releases it when i tell him.
the next step, i thought, would be to train him with a dumbell.i watched some you-tube vid and the other people at doggy school.
i purchased a doggy-dumbell of the correct size.

so,day 1,i offered him the dumbell and held it while he held it for a second then i treated him,repeated it though-out the day.(lots of little short sessions).all was really good and we finished on a good note.

day 2....he doesn`t want to know,looks at the `thing` then looks the other way.later i put it on the floor,after a while he touched it with his nose so i clicked and treated a few time and i have left it at that and put it away.

(i dont use the clicker all the time but he knows what it is)

any helpful tips and advice please?
thank you.
 
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If you throw it a short distance away, will he chase and grab it?

I clicker trained Henry to retrieve - he too was great at nosing the dummy but to get him to take the next step to picking it up, I had to throw it away and then click just as his mouth closed around it, as he couldn't quite make the mental leap from touching to picking up without the extra little bit of stimulation provided by throwing it.:)
 
did try that 1 time but he ignored it.it did clatter on the floorboards but his bone things clatter so it cant be that.

only other idea is to smarm something tasty on it?though i would wait to see peoples opinions on that.
 
Depends how clean you want to retrieve to be, I would think that if you put something onto the dummy it might get him licking it, or encourage mouthing, neither of which are really that desirable. If you just want to teach a fun retrieve for out walking I don't see how that matters, but if you want something more polished it might be better to avoid this.

Also, you might be too successful, and he might refuse to give it back!;)

As cc says, a soft puppy dummy or dumbell might help:D
 
You can definitely get puppy dummies for gundog training, they are smaller and lighter than the full-sized ones. Not sure about dumbells as I don't use them:)
 
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