Retriever Training: The Transition to Water

Retrievers love water, so you wouldn't reckon transitioning from land retrieves to water retrieves would be hard. It isn't, as long as you follow a few simple guidelines.

The key to a smooth start and ongoing improvement with water retrieves is to take it step by step, just like when you were first teaching your dog as a young'un on land retrieves. You didn't begin teaching land retrieves with marks that were hundreds of metres away. The same idea goes for moving to water training. Just as crucial, your dog's technical skills on land, stuff like obedience and bringing the fetch right back to ya, have gotta be sorted before you can reckon on a solid performance in the water.

Before you crack on with water retrieving, you also want to make sure your dog is confident, that he’s spent heaps of time in the water and that he’s learned how to be a good swimmer. You can’t work on retrieving skills if your dog is still trying to learn to swim efficiently. So sort that out first.

For the first retrieves in the drink, make them short and make sure your dog is having a blast. As far as troubleshooting goes, think of it like this: Expect any challenges you had on land to repeat themselves in the drink. Don’t get upset or lose your cool. Instead, anticipate problems you might run into and be prepared to deal with them.

One of the first problems you might run into is that as soon as the dog comes out of the water, his instinct will be to drop the dummy so he can shake the water off. A lot of dogs then will not want to pick up the dummy again. This is often true even of dogs that have been delivering to hand perfectly on land. To combat this problem, I’ll chuck on my waders and go a short ways into the water so that the dog doesn’t have to come all the way onto land to deliver the dummy. Gradually I’ll work my way back toward shore with each retrieve and continue to expect him to deliver to hand each time. I do all of this with the dog dragging a 30-foot check cord so I can grab it and maintain control if necessary.

When your dog is retrieving confidently and delivering to hand, then you can work on adding distance to the retrieves. You'll need a mate out in a boat, and that mate is going to gradually move farther away after each successful retrieve. As distances increase, the next challenge you might face is that your dog will swim just so far and then start paddling around looking for the dummy in the same area as before. This is a problem you might not have had on land because there it was very simple to lengthen the retrieves by moving yourself back. Now your mate in the boat is the one increasing the distance.

Also keep in mind that down at your dog's eye level, everything looks the same. There's no variation in the water, no terrain features for your dog to key on as he swims out for the retrieve. For that reason, you need to help your dog succeed. Remember, the early stages of water training are all about building confidence. So one thing you can do to help him is to always use white dummies. Everything about this is visual, and white will really stand out. If you use orange dummies, they appear grey to a dog and he won't be able to see them as easily. Add to that the fact that there might be some ripples or waves on the water. Suddenly, what seems like a very short, simple retrieve has become a challenge for your dog. So help him out early. You can work on more difficult drills later.

You also want to be sure that your mate is really switched on to what's happening so that if the dog needs a boost, your mate can shout or clap their hands to grab the dog's attention to keep him from pulling up short or, even worse, turning around and swimming back to you.

These are the first steps in training a top-notch water dog. In a future yarn I'll chat about the next steps we take at our training grounds to build even more confidence and get your retriever ready for tougher challenges.