Retrievers: The Power of Play

Robert F. Jones, in his classic book Upland Passage: A Field Dog’s Education, discussed the “unquenchable spirit of playfulness” he perceived in his Labs. He believed that all dogs share this quality to greater or lesser degrees—and that it can be the astute trainer’s secret weapon. Jones wrote, “By using a dog’s desire to play—truly, its need to play—to teach it worthwhile ‘games’ such as sitting on command, walking at heel, and hunting and fetching, the owner will keep his canine companion both happy and out of trouble.”

Professional trainer Sharon Potter, of Red Branch Kennels in central Wisconsin, agrees. If there’s one thing she can’t emphasize enough, particularly where younger dogs are concerned, it’s the importance of making training fun.

“When you’re training a young dog,” Potter says, “the number one thing you need to focus on is noticing when he starts to fade and lose enthusiasm. His ears may fold back, his tail will droop, his body language will tell you he’s stressing. People typically think they need to push harder when this happens, but that’s exactly what you don’t want to do. If you can stop what you’re doing right there, you’re way ahead of the game.

“I have a rule for young dogs,” she adds. “I’ll repeat something two times and, assuming the dog completes it successfully, I’ll set up for the third repetition but then stop. That third time—and I’ve seen this a lot—is often when that puppy decides, I’m gonna carry this bumper over there and chew on it. Well, that’s a step backwards. You want to keep training fun—but you don’t want to emphasize it so much that you end up un-training. By stopping with two reps, I’ve maintained the fun; plus, I haven’t pushed the dog to the brink of failure.

“There’s a reason little kids in grade school have a recess,” Potter continues. “They can’t do the classroom thing for four hours straight. It’s the same with young dogs. After a couple of retrieves, take them for a walk and let them run around and play. It gives them a chance to blow off some steam, reset their minds, and get happy again.”

While keeping it fun tends to be a less pressing issue with older dogs who know their business, it’s still a vital tool for keeping a retriever sharp. Potter often sees issues in dogs that receive virtually no training during the off-season but are expected to perform like champs on opening day. She gives the example of an impeccably trained Lab she sold to an avid duck hunter who, sometime later, called to say that his dog was sloppy on blind retrieves. When Potter asked how the dog was during training, the man replied, “Oh, I don’t train—I just take him hunting.”

“It’s a perishable skill,” she explains. “It’s like shooting. If you don’t pick up a shotgun for seven or eight months, you can’t expect to be as good as you’d be if you were shooting sporting clays once a week. If you can maintain your dog’s training during the off-season, you won’t put yourself in the position of having to be heavy-handed with him when the hunting season opens.

“But,” she adds, “you have to be sure the dog has a clear understanding of what you expect him to do. It’s when you keep repeating something, and the dog keeps failing at it, that he’s sure to shut down. So if something’s not working and the dog’s obviously not having fun, you need to figure out why. Stop, take a break, give the dog a couple of free marks to perk up his attitude, and try to come up with a better approach.”

Potter offers this final thought: “Once the dog’s demonstrated that he can do it right, don’t get greedy and ask him to do it again and again. That’s just setting him up to fail. You always want to end on a positive note and take your dog home happy.”