Baby steps for the pup

[mudman]

Well Thanks again to all the lended some great insite for me for training my 7 month old lab.

The hallway and cars worked great.
I work with him every morning and 3-4 times a week at night doing land retrieves.
He was wonderful for me this weekend up at the cabin with water retreiving.
I had to get into the water 2 times and kind of drag him up the shoreline and then praised him heavily. then he started doing it on his own.

This morning he seemed like he forgot how to retreive at all.
He would run to the dummy, then stand at it and look at me.
I had to walk over to him and put it in his mouth and walk him to the spot where I started.
Did this about 5 times before he brought it back on his own.

Is he being stubborn or just testing me or was he just tired this morning?

[Bushwacker]

It could be that the dog is bored with the same routine. The same thing you described happened to my dog at about 8 months. She all of a sudden started dropping the dummies on retrieves and not running out on the second mark. It seemed to get worse every day. I was so frusterated that months of work were lost that I stopped for about a week. The first time we tried it after the break she was flying to her marks with more excitement and more confidence than ever. It has been my experience that if things get too "routine" even a dog can get bored. Now I always mix in a "fun bumper" throughout the training and I try to work in different locations to keep things fun.