I've got a 9 month old pup that I am taking through FF. She is great with the fetch command until walking fetch (I've screwed up somewhere). I've gone completely through FF with numerous dogs and have not run into the current situation before.

This dog is a retrieving machine. She's a great marker and is extremely fast. On marks, she does not drop the bird. She scoops them up and returns and delivers to hand.

Now, however, on walking fetch she is more concerned with an ear pinch coming and will not even acknowledge the bumper. I take the leash off and she scoops it up.

I'm thinking about switching to collar fetch (after introducing the collar, but prior to collar conditioning for other commands). Somehow she is associating the ear pinch and movement to not go together. Hopefully, a nick, F, nick will take the struggle out of it and allow us to move forward with training.

Any ideas or comments. I've backed up, been patient, and have given her the benfit of the doubt.

BVM

You might try to bypass to stick fetch. Like you describe with the collar except with a stick applied to the base of the tail, she should be on lead. My second favorite stick is a wiffle ball bat. Also, you can get that forward momentum by holding the bumber just out of reach and sort of letting her persue it in a circle.

Bob,

I had this same issue with my 8 month old pup. She really had a hard time initially with walking fetch. When she refused and I would reach for her collar to ear pinch she would dive on that bumper like it was the last bumper in the world, as soon as we walked to the next and commanded fetch she would go stand over it and put her muzzle on it but would not pick it up unless I forced her.

I backed up a little and did walking fetch with my hand on her collar for a couple of days. (hard on the back) So everytime I commanded she was trying to beat my pinch and would dive for it. I did it enough to make it a habit to dive for the bumper every time I commanded and then moved back to walking fetch just holding the lead. She got it, while she still was not diving for the bumper she was picking it up every time and could see the effort in her.

I then went to stick fetch, at that point I had to re enforce the command again with an ear pinch and only stick on one out of 4 or 5 fetch commands.

Today she is a different dog, Picks them up on every command, Is more focused on the drill.

I will move on to Collar fetch this week.

Went and reviewed my situation, trying to find the hole and where I went wrong. Two things came to mind, 1) I was using a 5 feet leash, which either kept getting slack or got in the way. 2) When she saw the bumper she no longer would heel.

So I went back and did a few days with a pinch collar reinforcing heel.

Then I shortend the leash to 18".

The last couple of days, before walking fetch I have done a short session of heeling (with pinch collar), a short session of FF on the table and then moved to walking heel (short sessions). Tonight I "think" it click. She saw the bumper and instead of fighting, she lunged for it. Hopefully, the light turned ON.

BVM