Possessiveness

[trekmoor]

While taking an HPR training class today one of the handlers asked me a question on behalf of a friend of hers who has a young cocker. The dog turns his head away from the handler as soon as the handler tries to take the dummy from it. I answered as well as I could, making a couple of suggestions about how to deal with this fault but I felt a bit of a charlatan for my own cocker "Charlie" is one of the worst "hand dodgers" I have ever seen. He turned being possessive into an art form of ducking and dodging my hand.
He does a nice sitting present whenever asked to but even while sitting right in front of me he still manages to dodge my hand and retain "his" dummy.

I can, with considerable time and effort, persuade him to stand or sit still for several weeks in a row but he always returns to ducking and dodging just as he has always done. He releases the dummy into my hand immediately he hears the "Give" command but his attitude is definitely that of , " I brought it here to let you see it but it is still mine's so hands off !" He puts no pressure onto either dummies or game as he does this ....he just seems to like playing this little game with me !

The lady handler was very interested to hear all of this and then asked ....."It's a cocker trait then is it ?" I think it is , what do you think ?

Wullie

[Terry]

This is exactly what Bertie does,I am coaching him as best I can but even with my latest rageme ,I,e put dummy in mouth
Walk with him holding it stop lot of praise then give the command "dead" he still try's to duck away.
At least the growling stopped.......for now..!

[Stihl 090]

The lady handler was very interested to hear all of this and then asked ....."It's a cocker trait then is it ?" I think it is , what do you think ?

Wullie

No. my ESS boy is/was a bastard for that. Infact as many of my posts suggest retreving has not been there his forte'. That was ftch x oftw breeding with some serious pedigree. But both dogs had at some point in there life had major faults and retriving was it.

Ive found that on simple retreives its when he is most likely to hand dodge. More difficult not very often.
Ive pretty much got around this by letting him and encourageingbhim to jump up for delivery.
Definately nit "cockers only"

[Longy0710]

I too have a young lab here with the same trait! She will either circle me a few times or present and then dodge my hand like the plague. In my case I think it is a man made issue due to her picking up some very unsavoury things when little and me having to get them off her quickly. I am in the process of using placeboards to improve the delivery...... Fingers crossed

[keirk]

I've a young lab that would do just the same so I started "swapping" with a tennis ball, but I would hold the tennis ball up by my ear (so he had to look up). After a while I progressed to just "scratching" around my ear, then just faded it doing, and just gave him another dummy to hold.

[Rookie]

."It's a cocker trait then is it ?" I think it is , what do you think ?

The first cocker I had didn't do it. The second one doesn't do it all of the time but when he does he can take it to extremes. Generally, on a work day with real live game he's okay. Often lies down a few feet in front of me and has to be told to finish the job properly but gives in easily. I see that as more of a training shortfall.

Play time though, and time on dummies if he thinks it's the end of the game, or when he's found something lying about (can be anything that's not nailed down from hand tools to clothes off the washing line) and he knows you really want it back he can be a little sh!t. The more you let him see you want it, the more he knows he can make a game out of it. I have started playing right back and tried just sitting on his bench, eventually he comes up and tries to force me to take his stolen item from him. I take it and give it right back again. After that he will give and take the item without fuss. In his case, I think it's attention seeking behaviour.

He found a dropped wallet a couple of months ago and I was so sorry I wasn't there to watch the fun he had with that.
The owner really wanted it back - and the dog knew it!

[Naj]

I agree with others that this is a trained behaviour that can happen with any breed. I've done it myself with a springer & the root of the problem seems to be centred upon the practice of the handler taking the dummy from the dog, rather than training the dog to give/hand over the dummy to the handler. Couple this with the common embellishment of training a sitting 'present' & you're even more likely to produce a head-dodger. One day the pup sees your hand coming to take the dummy & turns away, by reflex, then realises that it worked rather well & develops the head dodging behaviour from there. The handler participates in this by persevering but the more you attempt to 'take' the dummy, the more the dog tries to evade your taking it, & a bit of a vicious circle develops. My solution is to always train a pup to give, or hand over, the dummy directly into my hand rather than me taking it from the dog. Doesn't sound much of a distinction but it puts the pup in a totally different mind-set if it has been conditioned to give rather than have something taken from it.

Naj

[Judy]

I do think Cockers are more inventive in the ways they develop to hang on just that bit longer to the birds. The Flatcoats seemed, on the whole, glad to be rid of whatever they had in their gobs, apart from one who would be a complete pita not letting go of dummies but would hand over birds with no issues whatsoever. Senior Cocker charges back with partridge, spins round and sits on my foot with her back to me, pheasants are delivered fairly normally, for her! Tennis balls seem to lead to the dodging heads more than dummies in my limited experience.
At the end of the day as long as runners are brought straight to hand I'm not fussed about how good the style of presentation is.

[Springfield Pointers]

I have a young dog that does this, he is more difficult to work with on the retrieving front as he is not a traditional retrieving breed and as such I need to be a little more careful not to diminish his enthusiasm. What I found worked for me was (as Naj suggested) not participate in "getting" the bird from him, but encouraging him to "give" it to you. I managed this by moving away from him when he looked like he was going to duck his head in an attempt to keep it. I just take a few steps backwards still holding my hand out to take it. This resulted in him being more eager to hand it over rather than me attempting to get it from him. Very soon I was able to stop the backwards behaviour and stand still with him handing it over without a fuss. My 2p.

[Terry]

So after a couple weeks of putting dummy in Bertie's mouth Gently then letting him walk round with it blowing stop whistle making him sit
then off again WITHOUT taking the dummy I would then sit him up and sounding like a girl give him the command and he let me take it
,his eyes told me he was not overkeen but then i give it back and off we trot again.
I do this 5-10 mins max twice a day he seems to be cool with it but there is a glint in his eye that says (you just wait).!!
Whilst in the house (naj) he has started to bring stuff to me and drop it on my Lap so to speak then i make a fuss and sometimes give him it back. Another thing i now do is when i give him a treat i stand and make him come right into me holding whatever it is in both hands as if waiting to be presented with a bird and he is doing that well now. So slowly slowly I think there is some improvement.
Bertie is coming Sailing this weekend so at least he can help with that. !!! Even if he cant retrieve haha....