Hi there,

The problem you have is quite a common one and it's probably a good thing that you've spotted it.

First thing I would ask, is Rupert show bred or working bred?

Secondly, has he been steadied to the retrieve yet?

The problem of dogs becoming a slightly bored of the retrieve often happens about 8 to 14 months and it usually very apparent in dogs who were usuaully very enthusiastic retrievers as puppies.

It is not a serious problem at this stage but can easily develop into one.

The thing to do is actually very simple though - deny them anything but one, very quick retrieve per day for about 10 days.

When you first take him out to do his training and he is at his most excitable that's the time to give him his retrieve.

You can spend the rest of the time on basic obedience - in fact its the perfect time to be working on sit, stay, heel and all the other really boring stuff - it's a bit like building a house, if the foundations are really solid such as the sitting, the recall etc - when you do start working on the interesting parts such as distance retrieve, handling on the blind retrieves etc it can be much easier.

Effectively by the time he's spent a week doing 'boring' basics and only having one retrieve a day for 10 days - by day 11 he'll be really up for it. I would also let him run in at this stage if you have steadied him - getting them back steady again is way easier than geeing them up if they lose interest in retrieving. I know when I work with Cockers for example, I let them run in for months and months and months to keep their interest high.

Hope this helps.

Keep plugging away with him.

I own Labs myself and have encountered some who are retrieve mad and some who can take it or leave it. Are you going to take him shooting eventually?

You will find sometimes that dogs who were not greatly enthusiastic about training on dummies are completely different on game. I once handled a Field Trial Champion Springer who actually point blank refused to pick dummies - in fact once he knew it was a dummy that had been thrown he'd turn his head the other way so as to deliberately not mark the fall. On game though....