Retrievers: The Long Run

Anyone who has spent much time in a duck blind recognizes the fact that not every duck or goose we hit falls dead from the sky. A lightly hit bird can “sail” for quite some distance, setting up a challenging retrieve. This begs the important question of how much retrieving range we can reasonably expect from our dogs.

“There are a lot of opinions on that,” says professional trainer Jimmy Rodgers of Mallard Run Kennels in Campbellsville, Kentucky. “But for me—and I was a hunting guide for 20 years before I became a professional trainer—I want my dogs to be very proficient out to 200-plus yards. My feeling is that if I train my dogs to be comfortable making 200-yard retrieves, they’ll be more than able to handle the vast majority of retrieves they’ll see in hunting situations. Hunting rice fields in Arkansas, for example, where you get a lot of sailed birds, retrieves in the 100- to 125-yard range are not uncommon. So you need a dog that’s prepared for that.

“Sometimes hunters will come out to watch us train,” Rodgers continues, “and when they see us doing 250-yard marks, they’ll say, ‘That’s not going to happen out duck hunting.’ I’ll say, ‘Maybe not—but when your dog’s capable of picking up a bird at 250 yards, the 40-yarders are chip shots.’”

For retrievers that have been professionally trained or have gone through an orderly step-by-step training progression with their owners, operating comfortably “at range” is rarely an issue. Any hesitancy or confusion they display is likely to disappear as they gain hunting experience and confidence. The dogs that have problems extending their range, Rodgers says, have typically gotten a steady diet of hand-thrown bumpers from owners standing right next to them—meaning retrieves that are no longer than 30 or 40 yards.

“Dogs are so oriented to place,” Rodgers explains, “that they build a wall at that distance. Your job as a trainer is to break that barrier down and essentially talk them into going past it. What we like to do is something we call ‘gun throw marks.’ Basically, you have someone else—the ‘gun’—position himself at the desired distance and throw the bird. We start at about 50 yards, increasing the distance every day until 150 yards is no big deal. From there it’s a pretty easy jump to the 200-yard goal.”

Owner-trainers can simulate these drills, Rodgers says, by giving their dog the place or sit command, then walking out to the desired distance and throwing the bird. Then, as each retrieve is successfully completed, you incrementally increase the distance. The ideal scenario here is to recruit a friend or family member to serve as your gun while you handle the dog.

Once you’ve broken down that invisible barrier and your dog is comfortable at longer distances, Rodgers recommends mixing it up during training sessions. “Throw long, but practice short too,” he advises. In the same session, he might give a dog a 40-yard bird, a 90-yard bird, and a 200-yard bird. This builds flexibility into the dog’s responses and helps him stay mentally agile.

“If a dog is sent to the same spot all the time,” Rodgers explains, “that’s where he’s going to tend to go every time. But once you break that pattern and make him comfortable at different distances, he’ll go wherever he needs to go to pick up that bird.”

Of course, you can effectively render this entire discussion moot by training your dog to do blind retrieves. “It’s a big advantage,” Rodgers acknowledges. “Generally, blind retrieves are longer than marks. If your dog is capable of running a 200-yard blind very proficiently, the sky’s the limit.”

All this being said, it’s critically important to keep your ego in check, exercise good judgment, and recognize situations in which sending your dog for a long retrieve might expose him to an unacceptable level of risk. Says Rodgers, “Sometimes you just have to say, ‘We’ll get that one with the four-wheeler’ or ‘We’ll get that one with the boat.’ It’s just too dang far away.”