Dog Won't Honor Retrieve

Thanks for reading my note. I have a one year old German Shorthair. She will begin her first season hunting in only a few weeks. I hunt her along with my 5 yr. old male. Oddly, she is the more aggressive dog and interferes with his retrieves. Unless I restrain her during his retrieves she takes the bird from him. Is the solution as simple as more Whoa training or is there another solution I am missing? Thanks, Will

Will,
You have a complex problem here that you might not be aware of:

A) you have an older, "broke" dog (5 yr old male)
B) you have a younger dog who isn't trained to the degree as is the older male.
C) you've got limited time to train/hunt separately.

How close am i? If i'm close, it's only because i'm living that problem myself, right now!

The only way to prepare for running two dogs together, is training the two dogs together. If opening day comes and you don't feel the younger dog has the manners as to not interfere with another dog's work, you owe it to your older dog to take him out alone....

Now as to how you train for two dogs running together.......

Make sure that the younger dog can sit/stay through a retrieve of your older male. This will be key. The dog must understand that what you ask of it must be done immediately. Don't get me wrong, there's alot of training you can do with the younger dog by itself,heel, whoa, sit/stay...etc...etc.... But ultimately, the dog is going to have to behave during the work of another. I could see your older dog getting real frustrated, quick!

Make sure to intrduce the shot in training. Some people prefer to have their dogs sit on the shot. It's a personal preference kind of thing.

The key is repetition.

hope this helps,

rob hopkins
Hoppy's Kennels
http://www.grayman.com



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