Am I doing right?

[zoli 16ga.]

So my new pup, Chase, loves to retrieve. Right now I'm using a tennis ball, but he has been trained on dummies and other feathered things.

I throw the ball a dozen or so times, he brings it to hand always. I don't do too much as he's only 5 1/2 months old. When I put the ball away he just begs for more. I don't let him chew on the ball. He'll even pick up a chew toy, spin around and lets it fly and then retrieves it, and does it all over again. I limit the retrieving till he briskly walks back v.s running, as I'm sure he'll do it till it hurts.

Question - is it ok to have him retrieve tennis balls to his hearts content? Do I need to add dummies etc?

Another question is his choice of chew toys. He loves the rawhide sticks I bought him, about 1 1/2" dia. x 8" long. They are made in America, and are quite hard for him to chew pieces off. He is very active, and chewing on them really keeps him busy till his next foray outdoors, or a snooze in the crate. I also have a kong I put peanut butter in, or some of his food, but he gets it out two easy, so after 5 minutes he's done. I bought some small chew toys from the vet, but he ignored them within a few days.

Question - Are rawhides good for him to chew on?

Any advice is welcome.

Don.

[Sharon]

Follow your training plan. Which one are you using? I recommend "Smart Fetch" by Evan Graham.

[Cass]

Ditch the tennis balls and use bumpers. He's young - he shouldn't be getting so many retrieves. At that age 2 or 3 retrieves every other day is more than enough until he has been through a proper force fetch program. A dozen retrieves every day is just asking for problems to crop up.

[vom Dufenshmirtz]

someone claimed tennis balls have something in them that ruins dogs teeth, can't say if it's true.
Have him retrieve variety of objects - shape, size, texture, weight.
How much to retrieve is hard to say, you have to make sure he's not bored with it, but on the other hand keep his interest... and it's good exercise.
I have no comment on rawhide, except if too hard dogs break teeth or even screw their bite, teething toys shouldn't be too hard, JMO
Is he done teething?

[welsh]

someone claimed tennis balls have something in them that ruins dogs teeth, can't say if it's true.

The story I've heard is they pick up grit and wear down the teeth, but that should be a non-issue if the dog is only holding it long enough to retrieve.

As far as how much to retrieve, my rule is not to repeat the same thing more than 3 - 4 times. But I might do several sessions of 3 - 4, separated by other things. The main thing is to quit on a win and quit before the dog gets bored.

[yellow dog]

So my new pup, Chase, loves to retrieve. Right now I'm using a tennis ball, but he has been trained on dummies and other feathered things.

I throw the ball a dozen or so times, he brings it to hand always. I don't do too much as he's only 5 1/2 months old. When I put the ball away he just begs for more. I don't let him chew on the ball. He'll even pick up a chew toy, spin around and lets it fly and then retrieves it, and does it all over again. I limit the retrieving till he briskly walks back v.s running, as I'm sure he'll do it till it hurts.

Question - is it ok to have him retrieve tennis balls to his hearts content? Do I need to add dummies etc?

Another question is his choice of chew toys. He loves the rawhide sticks I bought him, about 1 1/2" dia. x 8" long. They are made in America, and are quite hard for him to chew pieces off. He is very active, and chewing on them really keeps him busy till his next foray outdoors, or a snooze in the crate. I also have a kong I put peanut butter in, or some of his food, but he gets it out two easy, so after 5 minutes he's done. I bought some small chew toys from the vet, but he ignored them within a few days.

Question - Are rawhides good for him to chew on?

Any advice is welcome.

Don.

I have three chew toys the first one being a kong with peanut butter the second is a chicken flavour plastic bone (edible-hard) and a shank bone. I switch them around and keeps my Elly very busy and all three are safe. I do not play fetch in the house with tennis balls, dummies etc. In the house is her calm place to chew on these things and be part of the family. Outside she retrieves on a daily bases frozen birds ,live birds and dummies depending on my plan for that week on land or water. When she was a pup she would retrieve different items that had different weight and texture all outside. Never use rawhides anymore found that it would usually disrupt the digestive tract.

[zoli 16ga.]

Ok, so I don't let him chew on the balls. He just retrieves them from thirty feet or so. I will get a couple different dummies though. The trainer used paint rollers with pigeon wings tied to it, to get the feathered effect. Good idea about fetching different weighted sized objects etc. He will retrieve a slightly deflated soccer ball we have though!

Cass, not to argue, just to gain knowledge as I'm still learning, but if he retrieves on command, and if he drops the ball at my feet, and I ask him to 'fetch it up' he then picks it up until I take it, why would he need force fetch training? He will self enter water to retrieve a live or dead pigeon, or dummy. He is just insane about fetching (would fetch a stuffed toy and bring it back at eight weeks), doesn't even appear to be close to bored. He could go on for a few dozen fetches, so I figure a dozen is conservative, but breaks in between seems like a good idea. But two or three fetches every other day seems a bit cautious (again just learning). What problems can arise?

To clarify, I do not need the typical 'lab' fetch to heel and sit, and wait. If he brings me every downed bird like in the vid his whole life, I'm more than happy!

Yah, think I'm done with the rawhide, thanks for the advice.

D.

[3 black dogs]

If you keep throwing hand throw marks from your side as much as you are doing you are in fact conditioning the dog to only work as far as you can throw the tennis ball.
As for ff this gives you a tool that will belp you later in your traing that teaches the dog to work with you away from you it is more than just holdthe bird.
Its up to you to decide to do it or not.
if you shoot all your birds with in the distance you can throw a mark and dont care about delivery. Carry on but soon you will have a dog that will go out to a certain distance and pop looking at you to throw something for him.
your best bet is to get out with a group of exprerenced trainers and get some help with your dog before bad habits are engrained and harder to fix.

[krakadawn]

You've made a good choice to ditch the balls. Get some bumpers! He'll soon learn when they come out then it's time to train.

Force fetch is far more than just delivering to hand although that is important. Wait till he brings a crippled bird, puts it down and you lose it as he shakes or just decides he's done his part, might not even be at your feet, might be down the shore etc.
The underlying real purpose of force fetch is to lay groundwork in a training program. This is the first time you are insisting that an action be done...not just asking. Of course if you'll never be doing any formal training then there is little point.
If you have such a keen young dog then you perhaps should consider buying into a solid training program to allow him to become the best he can be and make you even prouder of his abilities.
Force fetching is so badly understood as to the purpose.....too bad.

[zoli 16ga.]

Ahhh....much clearer now. I'll certainly change things up!

D.