Episode 65: Retrieving with your Retrievers

This episode features two familiar guests: Dr. Gayle Watkins and Susan Patterson! As breeders of Golden Retrievers and Labrador Retrievers respectively, today’s episode is all about retrieving games you can play with your dogs.

How do you get a dog started with retrieving? The first step to getting a puppy trained in retrieving is finding something the puppy likes to retrieve and start retrieving in a quiet, confined place. The goal in getting your puppy used to retrieving is to make the process of bringing their favorite toy back fun (they usually don’t need any help taking the toy from you!). When starting out, also make sure to limit the number of retrievals to just 1-3, otherwise the puppy will become bored or disinterested. Another important point is to avoid touching the toy once the puppy brings it back to you. Puppies will bring the toy back to you because they want to see you - not because they want you to take their favorite toy from them. Instead of taking the toy right away, be sure to praise them and play with them before gently taking the toy.

What are some events you can do with retrieving dogs? Retrieving dogs can participate in dock diving, hunt tests, field trials, and other events that center around the act of retrieving. Before taking your dog to one of these events though, you and your dog must have a strong understanding of the rules and manners associated with participating in these events. The most important skill to have going into these events is the sit and stay. Once your dog is comfortable on and off leash and is able to stay obedient around distractions, that’s when you’re able to have all the fun that comes with retrieving at an event. Another huge skill to have is the ability to have your dog deliver the object straight to your hand, rather than dropping it in front of you. This is important to train young, as it’s more difficult for a dog to break the habit of dropping things in front of you. For sports that don’t require your dog to deliver items directly into your hand, flyball, dock diving, and disc throwing are all great options to stay active with your pups.

Listen to the rest of the episode to learn more about the details of hunt tests and field trials, including what both the dog and the handler are responsible for.

Transcript

Laura Reeves [0:40] Welcome to the Good Dog Pod! I am your host, Laura Reeves, and today (in back-to-school month) we are talking about some of the fun things that you can do with your dogs. Do stuff with your dogs, now that it’s back-to-school time! I’m being joined by Dr. Gayle Watkins and Susan Patterson. Susan is a breeder of Labrador Retrievers and Gayle is a breeder of Golden Retrievers, so we’re talking about Retriever Games! Welcome, you guys. 

Dr. Gayle Watkins [1:14] Hey, Laura. Glad to be here.

LR [1:14] Excellent. So, to start with: you have a puppy, and it’s a Retriever kind of puppy (or maybe it’s just a puppy that likes to retrieve stuff). We’re going to start with Gayle, and then we’ll move on to Susan. How are we going to get them started retrieving as a goal? As a thing for them to do?

GW [1:37] This is, I think, one of the most fun things to do with our puppies. The starting point for me always is: find the thing the puppy likes to retrieve. Maybe that’s not a ball. Maybe it’s a toy. Maybe it’s something else—other than maybe your shoes and your socks. Don’t be doing that! 

LR [1:58] No underwear! 

GW [1:59] Do not be throwing your bras! Find something that the puppy likes to retrieve and start retrieving in a quiet, confined place. I do hallways, typically, with the doors closed because it’s a retrieve, which means it’s supposed to come back to you. A lot of times if you find something the puppy really enjoys, you’re going to throw it, the puppy’s going to take it, and it’s his favorite thing so it’s going to leave. The goal is to make coming back fun. I’ll give two warnings, and then we’ll hear what Susan does. The things I see: people get Retrievers and at 9 weeks, the puppy likes to retrieve and the people retrieve and retrieve and retrieve and retrieve. And it’s a baby puppy! So it’s like, okay, this was fun the first time and the second time and the third time, but at the tenth time, it’s a baby. It doesn’t want to do it. My guidance is always no more than three retrieves in a session. For some puppies, it’s going to be a single retrieve. Then go do something else and come back to it. That’s one. The second thing is that puppy is not bringing that toy back to you. It simply wants to be in your presence with its toy. If the puppy careens back to you and you grab that toy out of its mouth (because you’re thinking it actually brought it to you), now the puppy’s thinking: Why would I bring it back to you? Because it’s my toy, and I want to be with it.

LR [3:35] You’re going to take it away!!

GW [3:36] Exactly. If it’s a hard toy (like a buffer, those plastic dummies we use), it will hit the back of the puppy’s mouth. It will hurt. Puppies—one or two times, and they’ll start saying, “I’m not bringing that back.” And they either play keep away with you or they simply don’t bring it back to you. So when your puppy brings it back, don’t touch the thing! Play with the puppy. Tell the puppy how fabulous it is that the three of you—puppy, you, and toy—are present together. And then 10 or 15 seconds or 30 seconds, then take it out of the puppy’s mouth. I would highly recommend you don’t wrench the puppy’s mouth open and shake the item out. Typically, if you simply pick up a baby puppy, the item will fall out of its mouth and now you can start the game again for a few times. That’s how we do it. 

LR [4:32] I love that, and that is exactly what we do, because Wirehaired Pointers retrieve also. They’re not Retrievers but part of their job is retrieving. I do exactly the same thing. I just play with the puppy until they spit it out of their own accord or I give them a cookie, so they have to spit it out to get the cookie. That’s my favorite. Susan, what do you think?

Susan Patterson [4:50] I do the same things that Gayle does. The difference is I don’t use a long hallway. Instead, I encourage them with super, super, over-the-top high-value anytime anything is brought to me. It’s the best gift I could have ever gotten! And then I will confess I might not care if it’s a shoe or a sock, as long as it’s brought to me and not chewed in the corner. With kids and grandkids around, I do have maybe a few extra shoes. But I like something soft. So what I will do is we will do a game (because I want it to be a game, and I want it to be fun!) and that bringing back to me is the biggest thing. I use anything from a soft, fluffy, fluffy paint roller—which I will use in the Avidog testing that I do with them when they’re little—all the way to a fuzzy lizard that the dogs seem to like. I buy it by the dozens, so we keep replacing them, but they love to bring it back. We may do a little game of tug, and then we pick it up and say, “Thank you.” Like Laura, I will do a high-value reward. A teeny-tiny piece of chicken, and I say, “Oh, this is wonderful!” and give it to them. We may toss, but not far away. When I say toss, I am tossing 3 foot, 4 foot, remembering they’re a little puppy. 

LR [6:28] And they can’t see past that point.

SP [6:31] They can’t! 

GW [6:34] You can see the retrieve item go out of their sight. They’re following it, and then they just walk away because it just goes right past their vision. 

SP [6:45] It’s really interesting. 

LR [6:46] They’re babies, and I think that that’s super, super important. One of my biggest criteria is: remember how old your puppy is and what it can actually do at that point in time. People often have expectations that their 8- or 9-week-old Labrador Retriever should be doing. A 200-yard blind retrieve? Like, they just don’t get it. It’s as if you’ve asked your 6-year-old child to go pass a physics test. We have got to accept, understand, acknowledge, and honor our puppies as they grow and meet them where they are.

GW [7:25] Absolutely. I think it’s so critical. 

SP [7:27] I agree.

LR [7:28] So now my puppy is 6 months old, and I’ve played with him, and we’ve done all this fun stuff. I’m thinking maybe I’m going to do something. Maybe I’m going to go to an event. Maybe there’s going to be other people and other dogs. Let’s talk about some of the events that we can do with our retrieving dogs: dock diving or… most of the registries have hunting tests or field trials and some of those sorts of things. I’m going to start with Susan this time. Susan just had a very, very big success in her breeding program, so we’re going to let her start. Susan, talk to us about hunt tests specifically for retrieving dogs.

SP [8:14] It actually goes back from the 6 months where, once you’ve established that this is a game that they really like to play, you have to teach them a couple of rules. I think that we fail our puppies sometimes because we’re so excited to take them somewhere that we don’t give them the manners to participate. One of the most important manners that you can teach a puppy is a “sit/stay” and a “place.” That is a critical training for the puppy going to a hunt test. I don’t care whether it’s a working certificate or a junior hunt test or any other test. They must have manners. The foundation of any hunt test is obedience. It doesn’t have to be this harsh obedience. It’s just like when we do this, this is what we do, and no, we don’t do that. It’s very gentle. It’s not harsh. But you’re expected to sit and expected to have a place.

LR [9:23] Boundaries! 

SP [9:24] Boundaries. Exactly. 

GW [9:25] Especially because we have the best reward in the world. If you sit, you get to retrieve. If you walk nicely on the leash, you get to retrieve. We don’t need to be harsh because we control the best reward, especially if we’ve built this in our Retrievers. I totally agree with Susan. The one thing that I’ll add to the “sit/stay” that I find many first-time Retriever owners don’t realize is they must deliver to hand. The vast majority of people want their dogs to drop a toy at their feet, so they don’t have to reach into the dog’s mouth or their kids don’t have to reach into their mouth. You don’t pass any Retriever test that I know of—

LR [10:20] Any event of any kind! 

GW [10:23] —if your dog doesn’t put that item in your hand. So I start very, very young with that. I know there are many training techniques that you can do that require the dog to deliver to hand, but you can start with a baby puppy, just not picking it up off the ground and kicking it with your foot or tugging it if it’s a tug-toy like the stuffed lizard Susan was talking about. Moving it with your foot. Anything to get them to pick it up so you can get your hand under it in time that they’re delivering to hand. That has been, for me, so difficult for many, many people because they start allowing their puppy to drop things. And then in the excitement of a hunt test or a working certificate, the dog runs out 50 yards. It goes through cover. It finds the bird! It brings it back 4 feet from you, and it drops it, and you dance around trying to get them to pick it up, and the dog is standing there thinking: Girl, didn’t I just run out 50 yards in cover, and I got it to within 4 feet of you, and you can’t reach down and pick this thing up? What is the matter with you?! But it’s because you’re going to fail if they don’t pick it up. That, on top of early gentle obedience, I think that is a huge piece of it. 

LR [11:50] I think that is a great one. How many times have I seen dogs fail, even the retrieving portion of pointing breed events, where they have to retrieve out of water, and they go in, they retrieve the thing, they come out, they spit it out on the bank, and they shake? And then they’re done! “I’m over it! What’s your problem?” Like, no, no, no! 

GW [12:14] And you can understand the dog’s perspective. Like, one of us did all the work, but…

SP [12:20] But now we need to talk about training the handler to get the slimy duck because there’s a lot of people who don’t understand that hunt tests are done with—it might be a multiple-use duck put in a winger that has been sent out, gotten wet, mouthed by a dog. They have been used for a couple of tests, frozen, brought back again. I think the biggest thing that I ever accomplished myself was learning how to handle a slimy duck to hand and put it on the dock dryer without gagging. 

LR [12:55] You can gag. Just don’t puke! 

GW [13:02] Gloves! Start with gloves if you’re completely grossed out, just start with the gloves. 

SP [13:07] There are some aspects to this, which—as much fun as it is to see the joy on your dog’s face when they do this, and it is such a bonding experience! When my dogs see that canvas bag, and they hear the leash, and they hear me say, “Load up,” they’re like YEE-HAW! It really makes a big difference. So one of the things I’ve done when they’re little is I do have friends who are hunters, so I have a bag of wings in my freezer. We do fun things. My neighbors think I’m a little crazy because I have a fishing rod with a wing on a string. Learning the scent, learning how to track the scent, because scent in the grass and scent in the water is so important, not just scent on the air. Teaching them that this is really fun, and letting them have it and then taking it. Retrieving it so that they’re not chewing the feathers. That has been a fun, small, short (5 minute) exercise that has worked well with my dogs. 

LR [14:17] Can I tell you about when I was a child and my parents raised field trial Labs? We had a freezer on the back porch that was just for frozen birds, training birds. I sent one of my girlfriends out to get something out of the freezer, and she went to the upright freezer instead of the chest freezer. I knew she’d gone to the wrong place when I heard her screaming! Hysterically! Some of us who work in the field with our dogs are—as I’m sure, Gayle, you can attest as well—a little crazy. 

GW [14:53] Oh, I’m crazy. I was just thinking about my freezer downstairs, filled with ducks and pheasants and chukar and pigeons. But you can also use a thing called a Dokken which is a duck or pheasant or chukar shaped plastic. It’s a type of plastic. 

LR [15:13] It’s not the same!

GW [15:17] I know it's not the same! But if that's what you’re starting with, start there because you can scent it. You can purchase duck scent. You can purchase pheasant scent. You can get wings from supply, or you can order them online. You can order all of that and start getting your dog accustomed to the odor, the shape. 

LR [15:37] The weight!

GW [15:41] And the head flops and things like that. 

LR [15:43] Legs flail. 

GW [15:44] If you’re a little unsure about birds—and it can be difficult to get birds until you’re in the system—Dokken are not a bad starting place and get some scent so your dog is beginning to get accustomed to—as Susan was saying—finding it, tracking it, looking for the odor on water and things like that. And then you can go to a hunt test. 

LR [16:08] Excellent. We’re going to use the AKC for right now, although there are a number of organizations—the Hunting Retriever Club, National… what is it?

GW [16:18] National North American Hunting Retriever Association. 

LR [16:22] Yes, UKC has stuff! All that. Everybody has something for Retrievers in terms of competition. But in the AKC system, the hunt test is a non-competitive event and has three levels: junior, senior, and master. Master being the highest and the most difficult. And then they also have what is called a field trial, which is a competitive event. You can earn a championship in the field trial. I’m going to have Gayle speak to this one because you have some. 

GW [16:56] I have QA2 dogs. So qualified all age. Field trials—there are many, many classes in field trials. Typically, they run derby, which is for dogs that are 2 years and younger. All of the retrieves in derby are retrieves the dog sees fall. Some of them are pretty long. But there’s also what are known as blind retrieves, where the dog has no visibility. Say the guy in the next field shot the bird or something, and the dog never saw it come down. You can direct it. But in derby, they’re all what are called “marked retrieves.” Still big, but not blind retrieves. Then there’s the qualifying stage, which is typically run. There’s now owner/handler quals. 

LR [17:48] Oh, interesting. That’s an addition since I was involved in the sport in the ’70s!

GW [17:53] It has evolved into a predominantly professional handler sport at the field trial higher levels. So these owner/handler quals are fabulous because it’s not pros, it’s just you and your dog. They’re wonderful! Then there’s the amateur stake in getting field trials. Amanteur stakes, pros can’t handle your dog in those. Again, you’re competing against other owner/handlers. Often, those dogs are pro-trained, though, so there’s no slackers in Retriever field trials! And then there’s the open stake. The open stake—everything’s off. They’re big. They’re amazing retrieves and blinds and complex things. You can be in there with the National Field Champion. She could be competing with you. And then these professional trainers and owner/handlers and younger dogs that are coming up. There are other stakes, but those are the four that are typically run at most field trials. Field trials are extremely competitive in the Retriever world. It’s really pretty remarkable how much competition there is in these stakes. It’s a pretty expensive sport. I would say hunt tests are more for the likes of you and I. But if you ever have the chance to go to a field trial, you’re watching the Olympics of the Retriever world, especially the open stake. Those dogs are just phenomenal! And the relationship with their handlers—

LR [19:40] The connection! It’s amazing when you’re 300 yards away and you’re giving your dog a hand signal to go to the left and find this duck. 

GW [19:50] They earn points, as you said, so you can get an amateur field champion if you get, I believe, 10 points. Amateur stake. You have to have a win, so you have to have a blue ribbon in an all-green stake, and then you can get a field champion, which is the ultimate field championship. That comes from amateur open, and you have to have 15 points and a win as well. And then of course there’s national level. You can be the National Field Champion or the National Amateur. There’s only one of those a year. Those are a very select bunch. 

LR [20:30] Those are very special. Susan, I want to have you talk for a minute about hunt tests in terms of not just that it’s you and your dog and less professional and more owner handled, but also the perspective—and we’ve touched on this other times in other venues, but let’s just take a shine at the concept of dual purpose dogs. So a show dog that also wants to compete as a hunt test dog. 

SP [21:04] I’ll just run you through the Reader’s Digest version. I have a  6-year-old. Her name is Fenwyck’s Eclair—Claire for short. It was a food litter in case you didn’t gather from her name. It is challenging to put titles on both ends of the dog because you are continuously pulling it into one venue and another. It is especially challenging when you have a female because you are still looking at breeding. You cannot run a hunt test when she is in season. But you can show her when she is in season, which is interesting. You’ve got to be looking at all of that. When I started with Claire, I started her very young. At 6 months old, I took her to my local breed club, which has a beginner hunt test training. There were about 8 of us with our fresh puppies and we learned what to do with them to start them on their way to working certificates. That was what our goal was. Again, as Gayle said with the field, everything that they retrieve, they saw because they are not old enough to really process “What do they want from me when they’re blowing this whistle and throwing their hands in the air and what the hell is going on?” And I will tell you Claire broke a number of times. By breaking, that means that she got up from a sit position, behind the blind, decided it was her turn to get the bird (not her brother’s) and away she went! You learn a lot of different things. But the big thing there was companionship, people to train with, people to work with. It was a big sense of encouragement. You can do this! You can see the dogs who have promise and the dogs who might need a little more encouragement. It doesn’t mean they’re not going to get it. It just means that every dog, like every person, has a different personality. I then started doing a little more field work with her. Field work was a matter of time. I ended up taking her to a trainer in Illinois who I trusted immensely with my dogs. That was very important to me. I was being trained. They were being trained. I could go off and she was doing well. She finished her junior hunter, came back, had a litter of puppies, went out for senior—the same thing. We did really well. And candidly until we hit master hunter, she failed more than she passed. We had a real challenge. Brought her back home to breed her. But in the meantime, we started showing her. That’s a different sort of competition. She was a little bored. Candidly: Where’s the bird, damn it! What do you mean we’re here without a wing? 

LR [23:54] I have been known to take a Clumber Spaniel in the ring with a bird wing in my pocket. Yes I have. 

SP [24:04] Wings might be in my pocket when she was being shown. That did make a difference. She took longer to finish her titles because she was female, and I took time out for reproductive mom duties—whereas her brother finished his master hunter at 2 years old. That was the Reader’s Digest of what it takes, but it is—I will tell you the entry to a Conformation show is $35. The entry for a hunt test is between $75-$125. That doesn’t include any pro time if you need it. It does not include the training. I haven’t yet showed my husband that checkbook. You know, we’re just going to hide that somewhere.

LR [24:50] Some of us find it better to just not talk about that. So, let’s close out then! These are amazingly fun things to do with our dogs who (in some cases) were bred and designed specifically to do these Retriever-type tasks. Let’s talk a little bit about some of the things that you can do with your dog that is a Retriever or that likes to retrieve that are still events, still competitive, but are way more on the fun side. I’m thinking frisbee. I’m thinking dock diving. I’m thinking—what’s that one where they run down to the end of the thing and jump the jumps?

GW [25:25] Fly ball? 

LR [25:26] Fly ball! That’s what I’m thinking about. That’s three fun things you can do with your dog: fly ball, dock diving, and frisbee competitions that are all about them catching, retrieving, bringing back, doing all the things with retrieving stuff but don’t involve slimy birds and a billion dollars. Let’s talk about those a little bit. What do we know about those? Are we going to do the same basic types of training to do those events and then just transition it to not a slimy duck or what are we doing?

GW [25:58] All of those focus pretty heavily on that retrieve. In those cases, the dog actually doesn’t have to retrieve to hand, so if you blew that part early on and you don’t want to try and deal with that with your dog, those sports are good. I’m a fan of dock diving. Fly ball, I like. It’s loud. But I like it. If you haven’t been to a fly ball tournament, they’re pretty loud, but it is a fun sport. I’m not as big a fan for disc dog with Retrievers because they are heavier dogs than, say, a Border Collie.

LR [26:38] So much of that is about the arabesque-ness of flying through the air.

GW [26:43] And really impassioned Retrievers are going to do what they need to to get that frisbee, not thinking about how they’re going to land. I always worry about cruciate tears and injuries and things like that. But dock diving—fabulous. You have to teach your dog to swim, but it’s a Retriever. 

LR [27:04] It’s a Retriever! It should swim. 

GW [27:06] There’s tons of dock diving organizations that have intros at their events. 

LR [27:14] You don’t have to be a purebred. Anybody can dock dive. 

GW [27:17] So you can just look for events near you and usually you can go and do an intro that morning. It usually will say on the premium list.

LR [27:27] Yup, same with fly ball. I think that fly ball is definitely (and disc dog) open to any dog. 

GW [27:35] Absolutely. Those are plenty fun!

LR [27:39] I think those are fun! Susan, what are your thoughts on that?

SP [27:41] I love them. I have dogs who make what are called “dramatic water entries” in their hunt tests. Dock diving is—I will tell you I have not done it aside from the intro, but it’s next on the list because I’m picking a dog who’s 6 and I expect 10 more fun years with her. What could she do next? I think that that’s so much fun. Like Gayle alluded to, Golden Retrievers, Labrador Retrievers—I’m very careful until their growth plates are closed. The first 18 months of their life. Because their heart is bigger than their joints and the ACLs. Any injuries, their heart is going to overcome—and they will want to do more than they are structurally capable of. You’re going to end up having a challenge there that you might not need. I would rather let them grow up a little bit. Do the baby games. So I see dock diving as a really fun thing that they could do. It involves water and a bumper! I mean, shoot, what more could you ask for?

LR [28:49] How much more fun could it be? I think the important part, once again, going back to our introduction: we’re going back to school. Hopefully, we’re going back to school! We have time. We want to spend time with our dogs. Our dogs are going to go back to school. Here are some of the things we can do with our dogs. All of them involve the best stuff: time spent with your dog, the dog gets to do what it wants to do and it gets to do it with you, and maybe you make new friends or find a new hobby in the process. 

SP [29:20] The community of people who do this is pretty amazing. I placed a puppy during Covid with a family who has a 15-year-old who wasn’t sure what she was going to do during Covid. By god, she put a junior hunter on the dog.

LR [29:37] The 15-year-old girl? 

SP [29:39] The 15-year-old girl! So in her college application, it says, “I was captain of the cheerleading squad and I put a junior hunter on my dog.” That’s a double bonus in my book. 

LR [29:50] I like it. Excellent. Well, ladies, thank you so much for joining us, as always, here on the Good Dog Pod. I just love having time with you.