A few1/2 x 1/2 " bits of cooked ham in a poly bag in your free hand pocket is the way forward .. when it gets close with the ball, tell it to give and offer a morsel of ham from the ham pocket , taking the ball from its mouth whilst saying give as its interest diverts to the ham and always give praise for a successful hand over of the ball .Our one won't give the balls back, he keeps turning his head away just as you get close....Mmm....ball throwing machine......would need to design a large hopper for gravity feeding.......
Always make your dog sit to heel ( on a lead if required ) , before throwing dummies or balls etc. then when it lands tell it to fetch or find ..this stops them from running in uncontrolled .
I offer that a really well trained dog is a very happy dog as the owner & the dog trust each other 100% .
One thing I learnt early on in my dog training days is when training never offer an empty morsel hand ..stop training when you only have one bit left and get the dog back on a short lead before praising it and giving it the last bit of ham .
Training sessions were rarely ever longer then 15 minutes followed by a short walk on the lead , with the dog being praised at every correct opportunity .
Once the dog got the aim of a particular session under their collar they got rewarded for the next week for doing it and also rewarded when the new command was introduced . I never gave rewards out willi-nily as dogs are greedy buggers and will soon cotton on to a freebie for doing nothing .
Once the dogs trust was gained and a command was firmly taken on board the rewards for that command ceased .
My last gundog bitch was able to work with 38 voice commands , over a dozen hand signals and about nine commands from a two tone whistle .
