Force Fetch - the downside?

[Alan Donovan]

The "Force Fetch" - it has been stated on another gundog discussion group that it is "Absolutely Essential" to use FF in training retrievers.

In the past it was possible to buy a pup for hunting with a reasonable
expectation that it would not mangle birds. This was probably due to
breeders selecting soft mouthed dogs for breeding and not using hard mouthed dogs. There are still many lines of dogs available here in Australia - competing successfully in both retrieving and utility field trials - which have not been force-fetched. They win at the top level.

Force-fetching is a very effective way of ensuring that your dog does not
damage birds. Unfortunately it hides the trait that would have led to it munching the mallards if it had not been trained that way. Eventually, if we select dogs for breeding purposes without adequate attention being paid to their tendencies towards being hard-mouthed - there will be little chance of NOT having to force fetch every hunting dog. Not all hunters are keen dog trainers - are we doing "the right thing" in using dogs for breeding which may well have been hard mouthed without FF?

Like most short term solutions to a problem - there is a long term price to
pay for the "quick fix". Easier to force fetch than breed for good bird
handling. If we do not breed for soft mouth, we will not get it.

It probably does not need to be said that there are ways of achieving hard mouth - using bad birds, etc - obviously it is not purely an inherited characteristic.

Have a triffic 2004

Cheers - Alan

[Julie Cramond]

Hi Alan and Happy New Year to all,

FF is also used to cure too SOFT mouths.

FF to my knowledge is used for many reasons.

The subject of FF has fascinated me for over two years, as I thought to myself on many occasions, why force a dog when it NATURALLY wants to retrieve. If it was that easy, why do we train our dogs to return to us, as it naturally would eat the bird. Why do we teach heeling with a collar and lead. Even simple heeling is forcing a dog to stay by our side.

There is also a huge difference between using game birds and pidgeons. Dogs generally as we all know in Australia are great regarding their mouths.

That being said, after FF, you can create a hot spot (by a reminder ear tug), if for example, your dogs cheats an angle entry in water in training. Less confusion for the dog etc. Any sensible dog would much rather run around a bank than face a long swim, if they are not trained to go straight into water.

I look forward to hearing other peoples opinions.

By the way, another subject that fascinates me is that here in Australia, due to our cover, our dogs have to turn themselves on and off, as in, being under our control (blinds/missed mark), and still KNOWING when to hunt themselves. Fine line indeed in having too much control in certain situations??????

[Andre Fendlason]

Force fetch is not a cure for hardmouth, softmouth, poor delivery or anything else in specific. All of those thing are simply affected in a positive way but as a side benefit to the real purpose.

Force fetch is a way of teaching a dog to deal with pressure in a controled situation. It lays the groundwork for the dog to reliably take correction at a distance. Call it conditioning the response of obedience if you like.

André

[Andre Fendlason]

Forgot to mention... The downside of force fetch is attempting to do it when you don't know what you are trying to accomplish.

André

[Kirsty Blair]

Hi Andre,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought FF was originally introduced by upland bird dog trainers who wanted their Pointers etc to retrieve the game they flushed? From what I've read, these pointing/flushing breeds weren't predisposed to instinctively holding or retrieving game and FF trained this behaviour.

I don't really understand how FF can teach a dog to take correction from a distance. Can you clarify this part of your explanation for me?

Kirsty

[Mark Sewell]

Hi Kirsty

Correction from a distance in this instance I believe would be made with an e-collar (electric collar). Force fetch is essentially a precursor to the application of pressure associated with the training of blind retrieves, line running and deliberate disobedience by the dog. An e-collar allows for clear and concise communication between you and your dog provided that it is used in a humane way and you as the handler have the ability to read your dog accurately. However, a thorough collar conditioning training program must be completed before the dog will readily understand a collar correction.
One thing I must say is that the e-collar doesn't make up for any deficiencies in a training program or an inherent lack of natural ability in a dog.

Regards

Mark

[Julie Cramond]

ANDRE,

Nice to see you visit and ALL THE BEST OF LUCK in the UK next year. It sure sounds as though you will be in the group of trail/trial blazers.

Julie

[Kirsty Blair]

Thanks, Mark. I hadn't made the e-collar connection.

Kirsty

[Andre Fendlason]

Hi Kirsty

Correction from a distance in this instance I believe would be made with an e-collar (electric collar). Force fetch is essentially a precursor to the application of pressure associated with the training of blind retrieves, line running and deliberate disobedience by the dog. An e-collar allows for clear and concise communication between you and your dog provided that it is used in a humane way and you as the handler have the ability to read your dog accurately. However, a thorough collar conditioning training program must be completed before the dog will readily understand a collar correction.
One thing I must say is that the e-collar doesn't make up for any deficiencies in a training program (as I have found out). It simply exposes the dog to pressure and allows the handler to prevent their dog from getting away with anything, thereby decreasing the time taken to train certain concepts.

Mark

Mark

I am more than thoroughly impressed with your assessment. It lacks very little from my own ideas.

Many folks who deride the e-collar do so without the understanding that it does not teach anything and it does not make up for or create any shortcuts in the process of teaching the dog. Simply put... a bad trainer will be a bad trainer with or without the e-collar and a good trainer will be a more efficient trainer with the e-collar.

Kristy

The relationship between force fetch and correction at a distance is strong. It provides the dog with conditioned obedience skills which it can then perform afield with total reliability.

The concept in a bit more depth involves the utilization of indirect pressure and how the dog responds to it while training in the field. (Kind of ironic that one must understand indirect pressure and how dog respond to it in order for you to understand how the direct pressure of force fetch comes into play. The reverse is also true).

I will attempt to make an example of a single training situation if you care to read on...

First, lets assume that we are working with a dog that has been force fetch thoroughly on the bench and in the yard. We are ready to move afield and start some handling drills. We decide the dog is ready for Force To Pile (FTP).

Being the informed trainers that we are... we already know what FTP involves and are adept at it posessing good timing skills for the correction to follow.

We start by sending the dog to the identified pile from or side and because we have done our force fetch thoroughly the dog breezes through this returning to heel and delivering nicely.

Next session we send the dog from or side but we stop the dog with a whistle half way. Dog responds nicely, turns, sits and waits for further instruction. You then give a left back. Dog turns and goes for pile and retrieves successfully.

The scenario was accomplished as one would hope for early work.

Should the same scenario not gone as well we would have been looking for a couple of different ways to get through the problem with as little and hopefully zero trauma.

The options would be...

1---- Keep sending the dog over and over till it is done right and hope the dog remembers the time he did it right and not the 15 time he got it wrong.
2---- Attempt to correct the dog physically while he is out of pocket and possibly requiring the trainer to run him down only to make the correction late and with the dog out of position aka direct pressure.
3---- Correct the dog with the e-collar in a timely manor at the exact location the sin was committed with the knowledge that the dog will know how to respond to the correction and thus deal with the pressure in a healthy manor.

Well, 3 would be my ideal choice and it works through a combination of indirect pressure and the dogs ability to perform a skill it already knows how to do in order to stop the pressure. The skill he will use to stop the pressure will have been drilled in obedience and the obedience skills were solidified in large part during force fetch.

Example of a scenario using this theory...

Same as above. Dog is sent to pile a stopped half way. Right back is given and dog turns left back and goes for pile. Beeeeep!...Nick....No/sit! Dog will respond at once to the beep and nick by sitting promptly. He has been corrected by giving a sit whistle followed by a nick which he was already in the process of doing anyway well before you said No or Sit. You have accomplished a couple of things here. First you are conditioning a quicker sit as the dog will begin to try and beat the nick by sitting as fast as possible after the sit whistle. You have applied direct pressure to the sit command (whistle) and the dog responded to it because it has had its obedience conditioned during the force fetch process. The dog has no clue you nicked him for the incorrect direction take. He thinks it is for a slow sit.

The real reward her is to be found in the indirect portion of the correction as it pertains to the incorrect back command response. Because you corrected the dog in a manor which conditioned the sit response it knew what to do to stop the pressure. That was good. What also happened is the dog will try much harder the very next back command you give him to resume the trip to the pile. The direct pressure of the sit conditioning nick will have a strong indirect effect on the next command given... whatever that command is.

We have more than anything focused the dog on the job at hand as well as instilled some additional compulsion to perform. Accuracy increases and life becomes all together better.

In essence... we force fetch to give the dog the tools it needs to respond to direct pressure it will get afield and this results in it becoming possible to utilize indirect pressure to its fullest benefit.

Believe it or not... Almost all e-collar correction done remotely and while afield are done with the indirect pressure being the primary benefit. Seldom is the direct pressure portion of a correction the end goal.

I have used the e-collar as an example of a way of correcting a dog. Do know that the form of correction can be of any type and is not limited to the e-collar. That said... the e-collar is most efficient.

Yes, Force Fetch can indeed fix many mouth problems and for some that may be the only reason they go through it. Thing is though it can and is much more than just that and trainers lacking that knowledge will have little idea of what they are doing to other areas of their dogs training in the process. Get it right one time and you will likely become a strong advocate of the idea.

André

[Andre Fendlason]

ANDRE,

Nice to see you visit and ALL THE BEST OF LUCK in the UK next year. It sure sounds as though you will be in the group of trail/trial blazers.

Julie

Looking forward to learning a thing or two and having some good fun in the process. Probably going to be a bit of a learning curve for the US folks going over.

André

[Andre Fendlason]

Kristy

FF was created by bird dog folks and is still a bird dog training method of choice.

We are dealing with retrievers which are specialists and the application of the FF training has additional utility to the retriever trainer.

Of all the hunting breeds the training difficulty/complexity of retrievers is highest. Hounds easiest and Pointers somewhere in between.

If all you want is to fix a mouth problem with force fetch then learn the process from a bird dog trainer.

If you intend to develop a skilled retriever with force fetch as part of the training then learn the skill from a experienced rertiever trainer.

André

[Kirsty Blair]

Many thanks, Andre, for the detailed explanation.

"Every day's a school day"

Kirsty

[Mark Sewell]

Hi Andre

Many thanks for providing us with such an in depth description of the application of indirect pressure. Of all the literature that I have read on the internet thus far, none has even come close to rivalling your explanation.

Thanks again

Mark

[Gareth Tawton]

Mark and Andre have hit the nail on the head. FF is not about trying to correct an individual fault like hardmouth. Although this is often a side line benefit. It is more about teaching a dog how to escape pressure and understand what response will be considered "doing the right thing". It is a training tool that can be employed even if you do not intend using an ecollar. Pressure can come in many forms, shouting, pulling on a choker chain, belting a dog etc etc we have all seen different versions of pressure. A properly FF dog will understand how to turn off the pressure. As a result it can help get dogs thru issues like hard mouth , water refusal, and no go. As our expectations rise as the standards odf dogs rise the pressure placed on the dogs rise. The dogs MUST understand how to deal with this pressure in order to achieve the new high standards.

Gareth

[Photog]

I hope you don't mind a few comments from a new guy from the U.S.

I have had several jobs that I have enjoyed so much that I would have gone to work in the morning if the paid me or not. I enjoyed the work I was doing and just being part of the team. But as much as I liked my work, there were some days that I would wake up and just didn't feel like going to work. The only thing that got me out of bed and on my way was knowing that I would get fired if I failed to show up for work.

Most field-bred retrievers live to retrieve. I know mine do. They don't need a treat or a pat on the head or a "Good Boy" to make a retrieve. The retrieve itself is their reward. But inevitably there comes a day when you send your dog and he looks up at you as if to say, "I don't feel like it." Then you reach in your pocket to pull out a tool to make him retrieve and the pocket is empty.

Force fetch is that tool. It takes something a dog loves to do naturally and turns it into a command. Now he doesn't have a choice because you have a tool (ear pinch) to enforce your command. Your dog will still love to retrieve, but now he knows he has no choice. Now he views fetch and hold the same way he views Sit, Back, Over, Here and all the other commands we use.

Ken