[nagdu] teaching retrieving without encouraging scavenging

[Danielle Sykora]

Thanks for your responses. I don't want to encourage my dog to pick up
anything he wants off the ground, but I also hope that teaching a
formal retrieve might make him more likely to pick up things and bring
them to me rather than picking them up and eating them or just walking
around with them. My dog is, and probably always will be, a scavenger
and I will be dealing with this problem in some way for the rest of
his life regardless of what other commands I teach. Retrieving is a
skill many non-guiding service dogs perform. It would be interesting
to know whether there is a difference in the amount of scavenging
these dogs take part in as compared with dogs who are never taught to
retrieve.

At this point, Thai knows how to locate several objects by name. If he
is on leash, he will either point at them or touch them with his nose
like he does with all of the other find commands. If he is off leash,
he will pick them up and bring them to me.

I can understand why schools would not want to drop otherwise
excellent guides for not retrieving; however, Thai has always excelled
at finding things and loves to retrieve. Whether retrieving comes
completely naturally, was encouraged by the puppy raisers during play,
was part of the service dog training he began before being switched to
the guide dog program, or some combination of the three, I probably
will never know.

Danielle, Thai, and Bonnie (GDF puppy in training)

On 7/22/15, Cindy Ray via nagdu <nagdu at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> I think I misremembered the reason for TSE's dropping of the fetch command.
> Cindy Lou
> cindyray at gmail.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Debby Phillips
> via nagdu
> Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2015 9:39 PM
> To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users;
> nagdu at nfbnet.org
> Cc: Debby Phillips
> Subject: Re: [nagdu] teaching retrieving without encouraging scavenging
>
> Vivianna, that is not why Seeing Eye stopped teaching the Fetch
> command.  It is a difficult thing to teach, it ruled out some
> dogs that would have otherwise made wonderful guides, it is
> physically hard on instructors, as well.  Plus there were things
> that at least Seeing Eye felt were more important, like
> intensifying the training for traffic.  I miss the Fetch command,
> but my third dog was the most excellent at it.  I could drop
> something and she would come and pick it up for me and give it to
> me.    Blessings,    Debby and Nova
>
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