How to stop playing with bumper?

[Gatzby]

How old is the dog, and breed? He sounds young and possibly not a retrieving breed, but it doesn't matter much as my advice is the same.

I'm going to go in a slightly different direction. The command he is disobeying is the "here" command. I would do obedience work with a check cord and firm up his here command. Use the environment to get corrections IE here him off a squirrel, here him off a favorite person, and maybe here him off his food dish.

When recall is rock solid put a rope on the pup and throw a bumper. Real him in if he starts jacking around with the bumper. If he drops the bumper continue to real him in sit him and get the bumper yourself. End of retrieving session, work obedience for a few minuets try again at retrieving. Repeat until he realizes coming back to you will get him another throw. The retrieve is the reward.

PS keep the retrieves short thus giving him less time to think about screwing around. A 10 foot retrieve and a sixty foot aren't that much different other than distance erodes control, and with a short retrieve you can get more reps.

Good luck and be patient

 

[KEOutdoors]

Something else i just thought of that I think I better say is to make sure you are never letting the dog play with the bumper until he is fully trained. Use it as a training tool, so he realizes when the bumper (and bird) come out, its work time and not play time. Too many times ive seen guys let their wife or kids play fetch with the dog using a training bumper instead of a toy, one time doing it "wrong" and you just set your training back even farther. Even worse is letting the dog play alone and chew on a bumper.