RETRIEVING AUSTRALIA FORUM

Hi All,

I was giving some thought today to the aspects that are priorities for me in building and developing my pup for retrieving. Whilst I do follow a well-defined pathway in his training (which I have no doubt is similar to what many others do) I have noticed I tend to focus more on building certain areas. These areas luckily form a neat acronym; "ATOM" which is, Attitude, Trust, Obedience and Memory.

So, for you, what are your priorities when developing your retriever?

Looking forward to hearing from the huge stores of experience and ability that lurk quietly in the shadows of this board. Please share so that others can learn...

Cheers
Kirsty

Hi Kirsty,

I like your neat acronym “ATOM” although I am not sure that “trust” is an aspect deserving of mention in its own right. To me trust is a two way street; the dog trusting its handler and the handler trusting the dog, hence trust is inescapably linked to obedience and memory.

A key aspect that is often overlooked or forgotten is maintenance! In this case, maintenance relates to the handler maintaining his standards i.e. when a handler is faced with a problem it is infinitely better to simplify the test than to compromise the one’s standards in the hope that the problem will go away. Maintenance also relates to the ongoing need to maintain skills and/or understanding of concepts the dog has acquired over time. Clearly certain skills require significantly more maintenance that others. Without question, water work (including swim-by, casting over, swimming by and casting off points etc) is the area that requires the greatest level of regular maintenance.

Evan Graham wrote that a retriever without momentum is not a retriever at all, a view that I fully support is. My acronym is MOM – Momentum, Obedience and Maintenance. I do not specifically work on memeory as this aspect is well covered by concepts such a Triple Marks, Two Birds, Double Falls and Double Rise retreves.

Best of luck, RWT

its a real shame more top level trainers dont respond to this thread.if your looking for priorities Kirsty, and only Bob of all the top trainers has responded, I will give you my acronym even though I am currently a very unsuccessful competitor
M.A.T.
marking because without a reasonable latent talent level all the rest is irrevelent
check out http://www.dobbsdogs.com/library/retrievers/rj22.html Dobbs has written a 4 phase article on marking enhancement

attitude it helps to have a good start but it is a constant work in progress especially with minority breeds

temperment , particularily trial temperment as i have found out over the last 4 years, you can have the best trained dog in the country and the quickest but if your dog cant hold together under under trial pressure your dog is useless as a competitve retriever.I believe this is about 80% genetic
My ideal type of dog temperment would be a dog like KING who is very high powered but has reasonably good line manners. and although he can be a little bit sticky rotating at the line,i think he does it remarkably well for such a highly motivated dog.
It all comes down to balancing your dog, all the + and - associated with such issues as perfect line manners (such as blackie) verses enough relaxation to free the spirit sufficiently to mark really really well and cope with out of the ordinary situations
Enough of my rambling lets hear from some of the experts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!