Retrieve-To-Hand: Creative Ideas for Building Foundational sport skills
Retrieve-to-hand is both a practical and fun behavior, but what if your dog is not naturally inclined to perform it? Michelle Wieser, KPA CTP, from Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada shows us how to train the behavior by breaking it down into smaller pieces.
As Ken Ramirez often says, “advanced training is just the basics done really well.”
When Michelle Weiser set out to teach her terrier Flash to retrieve and return an object to her hand, a skill that did not come naturally to him, she went back to the basics. She broke the behavior down into smaller, familiar pieces, behaviors Flash had already learned through clicker training.
Flash already knew how to bite and hold an object and how to place his chin in her hand on cue. Michelle simply combined the two. She placed the item at a distance, cued “bite,” then cued “chin,” and just like that, Flash returned with the object and placed his chin in her hand. Michelle turned the learning process for this fun and foundational behavior into an engaging game.
If you or your clients are looking for creative ways to build foundational skills, boost confidence, and strengthen your relationship, whether or not you foresee a playful future together in the world of dog sports, the Dog Sports Essentials course is a great place to start.
Happy training!
PLAY AT A HIGHER LEVEL!
Learn the skills you both need for most major dog sports in our online course, Dog Sports Essentials.