Ever since Liberty came home at 7 weeks and I put the drag rope on her, she has been infatuated with ropes. As a pup she would "chase" the rope as she saw it moving with her; Picking it up and playing with it. I did discourage this as much as possible, but seeing as how she was tied up outside much of the time the habit was a hard one to break.

Of course, this rope fetish passed on to the ropes on the bumpers and even as a pup she would much rather have carried the bumper by the rope than by the 'body'. I went as far as to take the ropes off all the bumpers when she was younger and shorter throws were okay.
With 'hold' training she still wants to carry bumpers by the rope where it attaches to the bumper.... UUGGHHHHHH. For now I simply place the bumper in her mouth correctly when she comes back. In early November we halted FF because of a poor attitude - she simply wasn't ready for the pressure. However, during that FF she did have a tendency to want to grab the end of the bumper that had the rope on it - I made sure she grabbed it in the middle, but the 'idea' simply did not sink in.
We have resumed working on FF (going much better now). I am not using a bumper - a wooden buck for now - but will probably be moving on to a bumper in a couple of days.

Any ideas????? I don't want to put anything distasteful on the bumper rope because I would assume that if it smells or tastes bad she will completely ignore the bumper. I know that it can be difficult to retrain chessies no matter whether the habit is desired or not, so hopefully this is something I can work out.
thanks, juli