Postby goosebruce » Wed Jul 09, 2003 7:27 pm
d&b, I don't know what your considering ftp... but its an extension of ff, and ff would need to be firmly in place to do any meaningful pile work. I doubt seriously your there already with a 5 month old dog. A dog needs to be readyed for force work, and there would be no room for confusion. The waterdog book (and perhaps top dog, I haven't read it so I cant say for sure) never mentions force fetch in anything other passing... tossing some bumpers 30 feet away into a pile and sending a dog is not ftp... Your dog is doing it simply because he likes too, and wants to please you... that alone will never suffice, because as soon as his will to do something else overcomes his will to go to that bumper, he wont go, and you wont have the tools to correct him.
NOT trying to burst your bubble, so please don't take it as such.
Force fetch develops momentum... to a blind, to a mark, to a pile, to anything. Once basic ff is done, walking fetch and stick fetch teach that dog to go fetch, and a pile is an extension of that. Merely iding a pile and sending pooch, is a quick drive with bald tires and bad brakes... certain to crash. If the dog doesn't go, what do you do? Nothing... hes not equipped to handle it. FF is what gives the 2 of ya'll those tools, and the momentum for him to do it.
At 5 months, you should be working on ob, watching for sore teef, and doing simple field marks... introducing the dog to birds, and guns, and elements of the hunt. Save the pile work for when your both ready for it, plenty of time for that.
I'd suggest expanding your reading material. Amy Dahls 10 minute retreiver and Evan grahams smartworks books immedately come to mind, and the Dobbs tritronics book is a classic in my mind. The waterdog book was written 40 years ago by someone who was a writer and the owner of a superdog... it never mentions any problems that come up because that dog didn't have any, and the writer only had the experience of that one dog. If the dog hadn't been a wonderdog, the book would have never been printed. Those dogs are very few and far between, belive me.
Check out any dog fourm on the internet and read the questions. 90% of the problems encountered by people would have never happened with solid ob and ff in their dogs. I can't stress the basics enough. Even the most advanced retreiver progams on the planet have a standard of correction for only infractions of go,stop,come until advanced train. Because if a dog won't reliably go,stop, come you can't hunt him, test him, or train him in field condtions. Go is ff, stop and come are obedicence. Its really, that simple. The birds and the drive is in there, and if it isn't you can't put it there. The go, stop, come is your job, to instill correctly, and fairly to your dog.
I once had a friend ask me to come help her teach her dog to 3 handed cast. I asked her to show me what they where doing. She got dog out and put out 3 piles, and the dog bounced around when she told it to sit. She tried twice to get dog to sit, while she got in postion to toss a bumper and cast dog. I told her take dog home and teach it to sit, and we'd meet back up in a week. She didn't, and she never did teach that dog to cast. How can you get a dog to sit and take a cast of direction, if it wont sit? You can't. How you get a dog to always take your cast, if he doesn't go and you can't make him? You can't. Great field dogs are made in the yard. travis
. If I throw her a wing or a bird, she is all "go" and will pick it up and and bring it back. 
