Casting and Force Fetching

I have a Lab that is two and half years old . She is good on obedeince and loves to retreive both dummies and ducks. She has not been force fetch conditioned. Iam having a little trouble teeching her hand signals;could this be connected to not being force fetch conditioned? If so is she too old to start now? She has a lot of persaverience and a good nose and she usually comes back with the duck.

The connection between the force fetch and the hand signals is likely not at the root of your problem.

Teaching a retriever to take hand signals, called casting, can be a lengthy process. It should be taught completely separately from teaching the dog to run a line to a "blind" and should even be separated from the sit whistle. When you teach over and back in a simple way, and repeat frequently, the dog will eventually learn the skill and perform it reliably. The you can start to put it together with the other skills.

best of luck,

Bill Corcoran
Highland Retrievers
bcorc4@aol.com
Highland-Retriever.com

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