17. Retrieve

17. RETRIEVE

LEVEL THREE

Dog nose-targets four different objects including a dumbell, on one cue each.

DISCUSSION: Most trainers divide dogs into "natural" retrievers, and dogs who don't retrieve. All kinds of harsh methods have been devised to force non-retrievers to retrieve. These methods have turned off more potential dog trainers than any other part of training. Fear not! It is NOT necessary to do nasty things to dogs to produce a reliable retrieve. Even dogs who have never thought to voluntarily pick up a twig or a toy can be taught to enjoy retrieving.

A solid retrieve always feels to me like a turning point in my relationship with a dog. When I can ask her to reliably bring me something, it makes me feel that we're really communicating.

The point of this behaviour is simply to get her thinking about many, many things as objects to be touched. In agility, we need the dog to focus on objects to jump over, go through, climb, or weave. A service dog may need to focus on various objects to retrieve, push, or pull. An obedience dog will need to retrieve different objects and commit to different behaviours with others. A shy dog can target feet and hands to improve her appreciation of strangers. Even if targeting didn't lead directly to retrieving, it would be a worthwhile endeavour.

EASY BEGINNINGS: You've already got the dog targeting your hand and a target stick, so getting her to target other objects shouldn't be any problem at all. I like to keep a basket of "touchables" handy to practise on: a pop can, a pencil sharpener, pen, rolled-up newspaper, old cell phone, a videotape, Kleenex box, plastic cup, spoon, glove, leash snap – the more things you have her target, the better she'll understand life as a series of objects to be manipulated.

Of course, the dog should be able to pick up any dumbell, whether it's small enough to fit inside her mouth, or outweighs the dog herself, but for the sake of competition, you'll want to get one that fits her mouth properly. Be sure her lips have room to fit comfortably between the ends, but the bar isn't much longer than it needs to be. You'll want the ends big enough to lift the bar well off the ground, but not large enough to be poking her in the eye when she picks it up. All this is of little importance at this stage, but if you're going to buy a dumbell, put some effort into the fit.

When you start having her touch the dumbell, don't worry about where she touches it, just get her going well on the touching. Once she's eager to touch it, start positioning it so it will be easy for her to touch the bar. Then you can stop clicking her for touching the very outside of the bell. Click any other touch. By changing how you present the dumbell to her, you can keep your click rate very high, while not rewarding her for touching the outside.

When she's still eager to touch, and is aiming for the outside of the bell less than one time in ten, you can stop clicking any touch but those that land on the bar. You're shaping her to touch the bar, so be careful not to frustrate her into quitting. Keep her excited about the target and gradually move to the point where you're only clicking for touches on the bar.

PROBLEM SOLVING:

SHE WON'T TOUCH ANYTHING METAL! Ask her to touch your hand X10, clicking for each touch, then put the metal object inside your hand, ask for another ten touches. Then let the object stick out of your hand just a smidge, and ask for another ten touches. Then let it stick out enough that she's occasionally going to brush it while touching your hand, do another ten, and finally move it out of your hand far enough that she has to touch the object in order to touch your hand. Click for her touching the object, and reward before she has a chance to touch your hand.

SHE'S NOT TOUCHING, SHE'S GRABBING! If this were the "Target" behaviour section, that would be a problem we'd try to work around, but since this is the "Retrieve" behaviour section, we'll just give a big hairy "EE HAH!", click, and reward her for grabbing anything. Don't let go of it yourself, but click and then trade a reward for the object.

ADDING A CUE: Don't put a cue on this yet. Just let the presentation of the object itself suggest to her that touching it will be rewarded. You don't want to use a Target cue, because we'll be asking for more than that in the next Level, and you don't want to use a Retrieve cue, because you don't have that behaviour yet.

CONTINUING EDUCATION: Get her to touch everything you come across. Big things, little things, soft things, hard things, fuzzy things, metal things, leather things. If you can touch it, she can touch it!

LEVEL FOUR

Dog takes and holds two objects in her mouth (one at a time), one of them metal.

DISCUSSION: But, you say, my dog is a natural retriever. Why does she have to "learn" to retrieve? Well, if you're completely happy with the retrieve you have, she doesn't. BUT if you're planning on going into any competition that involves the dog picking something up and giving it to you or taking it anywhere, I'd strongly suggest you teach her exactly WHAT you want her to pick up, HOW you want her to hold it, HOW LONG you want her to hold it, and WHERE you want her to put it. "Natural retrieving" is a huge lump. It's very difficult to fix a problem in the middle of a lump. What kind of problems happen in retrieving? She chews the dumbell. She throws the ball at you or drops it on the ground. She takes your mitts to the far corner of the yard. She punches the dumbell with her paws before she picks it up.

The problem is even more acute for Service Dogs. A credit card with holes in it is about as useful as a sock with no toe. All these problems can be easily fixed in the small slices making up a trained retrieve. The dog can be taught to hold the dumbell by the bar directly behind her canines. She can be taught to hold it securely, not mouthing or chewing. She can be taught to hold the credit card gently, and to hold a door-opening rope in her molars to give her more power.

At this point, don't worry if your new dumbell hasn't arrived yet. You can use a pencil. A piece of dowel. A spoon. Your finger. A soft toy – yes, but it isn't much like anything else she'll have to pick up, so I'd use that as a last resort.

EASY BEGINNINGS: You have a solid, enthusiastic touch on an object (we'll call it a dumbell). Now you need to get it in the dog's mouth. How can you explain this?
You could ask for TWO touches before you click. Not clicking the first touch will usually make the dog give you a "Hey, Stupid!" reaction – the foundation of shaping! By "Hey, Stupid", I mean the dog gives you one touch and gets no reaction. At that point she looks at you, practically screams "Hey, Stupid! I TOUCHED it! Weren't you paying ATTENTION? LOOK!" and she bashes with her nose again, just to be sure you could see it that time. This second, slightly frustrated touch will frequently be harder than the first one. You might even feel her teeth click on bar as she bumps it harder than before. Click! If it isn't harder than the first one, well, at least you got two touches, so you're still ahead of the game.

You could determine how hard her touches are, then, in the next 10 touches, fail to click the lightest one. If you pay close attention and, in every 10 repetitions, fail to click the lightest one, her touches will get harder and hard, and that's what we're looking for. Sooner or later, as her touches get more aggressive, just by accident, she'll open her mouth. CLICK!

You could ask for ten touches, then put a tiny dab of peanut butter or Cheez Whiz or the bar. As she opens her mouth to lick it, click. Click the next bazillion open mouths.
The bottom line is "play around with it". If she's just not going to open her mouth, try the soft toy.

Above all, DO NOT LET GO OF THE DUMBELL! You can BOTH hold on to it at the same time!

Once you've got her opening her mouth on the dumbell, you can start working on some duration. Don't click for half a second after she puts her mouth on the bar. If she takes her mouth off it, do nothing but wait for her to offer it to you again.

PROBLEM SOLVING:

SHE PUTS HER MOUTH ON IT AND THEN SPITS IT OUT SO FAST I CAN'T GET ANY KIND OF HOLD AT ALL! A normal step in the progression. She's been putting her mouth on the dumbell and you've been clicking. The click ends the behaviour, so she thinks the behaviour is to grab the dumbell and ungrab it as quickly as possible. Relax, we can fix this. Of COURSE you've been clicking as she hit the dumbell, rather than as she was moving away from it again, right?

Click X10 for the grab. Now let her grab and ungrab it, and you DO NOTHING. Sit there holding the dumbell out with an expectant look on your face and do NOTHING. She'll hit the dumbell once, spit it out, look at you, give you a "Hey, Stupid!" and hit it again. CLICK! You got two grabs for the price of one! Keep asking for two grabs before you click. If you start to lose the grab, by all means go back and pay X10 for a single grab, but then ask for the double again.

Ailsby's Principle Of Laziness says that it's easier to hold something than to grab it twice, so if you keep clicking the second grab, the behaviours (spitting it out and reaching for it again) between the two grabs will get slower and less enthusiastic. Sooner or later, she'll ask you if maybe she could just sit there holding it with you instead of actually spitting it out? And you'll agree that yeah, that would probably be OK… And bingo, you've got your longer hold.

MY DOG HATES METAL! WHY DO WE HAVE TO DO METAL? We have to do metal because not picking up metal is a distinct handicap in many sports and jobs. And because there's nothing inherently bad about metal, it just tastes different than wood, so it's an excellent test of your ability to start from scratch and explain something that's really new to the dog but looks to you like an old behaviour she should already know!

ADDING A CUE: Nope, not yet. Let the sight of the dumbell be the cue to grab it.

CONTINUING EDUCATION: Notice that no part of this Level involves trying to get the dog to pick the dumbell off the floor or hold it without your hand on it. Following the written Levels for this behaviour will get you a lovely, happy, enthusiastic, CORRECT retrieve, so don't jump ahead on that! If you want to throw something, throw something that isn't important in a sport or job you want your dog to perform. If she chomps her chewtoy on the way back to you, that's not going to screw up your obedience retrieve OR your credit card!

Keep your hand firmly on the dumbell. This way you totally control WHERE she's holding it and HOW she's holding it. Dogs chew things between their molars. Keep the bar directly behind her canines, and she'll hold it steady. Click ONLY for a quiet hold. When you click, she can let go, but it won't drop, of course, because you're still holding on to it.

When she understands that a quiet mouth and a continuing hold are what make the click happen, you can try taking your hand off the dumbell, just for an instant. Put your hand on it again before you click. Build up to moving your hand around her head, tapping the dumbell, maybe even pulling on it a bit. If you haven't clicked yet, she should still be hanging on to it.

LEVEL FIVE

Dog performs a 20’ Retrieve of three objects including one metal. Appropriate cues.

DISCUSSION: Think of many different objects for retrieving. Your dog can put away her dish, she can clean up her toys, she can bring in the newspaper and that can of cat food you dropped on the way in from the car. Get her started early while it's easy. Can't think of a metal article? How about a spoon?

LEVEL SIX

Dog performs three 40’ Retrieves - one metal object, one official dumbell, one article of the handler’s choice. Appropriate cues.

DISCUSSION: This covers the retrieve part of the Flat Retrieve, Retrieve Over High Jump, Directed Retrieve, and Scent Discrimination. Obedience trials are pretty much handled!

LEVEL SEVEN

Dog performs an 80’ Retrieve of any object. Appropriate cues.

DISCUSSION: At 80' in grass, the dog might not even be able to see the object. She has to go a long way on faith to give you a solid, correct behaviour.