Building Motivation for "Back" into Water

Few sights are more chilling to a field trainer than a "no-go", when you send the dog and she just stands there, maybe glancing up at you, maybe just staring forlornly out into the field or pond.

One way for this to start happening is to raise criteria on a particular drill too fast, resulting in a high percentage of unreinforced or corrected attempts. The dog can lose confidence, perhaps begin to pop even when performing correctly, and maybe even refuse to take a chance on going out when sent. That's not the only way to get a no-go, but it's one of them.

For that particular problem, one antidote is a rousing session of highly reinforced "Back" send-outs. Here's the water version:

1. Carrying a bumper, take the dog to water's edge at a favorite pond and cue "Sit".
2. Position your hand over the dog's forehead as when sending out on a blind.
3. Cue "Back".
4. After the dog has launched and begun her swim straight out, throw the bumper high and far beyond her, so that she will reach it if she simply keeps swimming straight.
5. Repeat several times, but end immediately if you see any sign that her interest begins to flag, or preferably, as your experience with your dog makes it easier to predict her endurance, stop before that happens.

To keep the focus on building high reinforcement history for "Back", avoid working on difficult entries, complex line mechanics, or any other skill that would result in send-outs where you have to correct the dog's line or call her back. An exception would be a dog (like Lumi) who has been taught directions ("left" and "right") as reinforced cues, since using those would add to the goal of building reinforcement history for the original send-out.

By contrast, a WS, no matter how reinforced in training, would be avoided in this game, because it's effect is to delay the dog's forward momentum. Though the ability to respond to a WS is of course necessary for a handling dog, and ultimately supports the dog's desire to complete the retrieve, IMO the break in momentum is not fun for the dog and does not build reinforcement history for the send-out.