strange breakthrough with Harley and retrieving?

[c0_re]

First off I’ll apologize ahead of time for a long post its late and I’m wrapping up a 13 hour day

Since I've gotten Harley from the humane society in February(he was 10 months old) he's been an inconsistent retriever at best(he’s a 50lb choc lab X, pics to the left) in water or on land. It’s not a big deal he’s very obedient on\off leash friendly, sweet, submissive and well mannered he’s not a professional hunting dog he’s a pet but I’d like to be able to give him that experience if he wants it.

In the water almost all times he'd stop before the deep(over his head) faster moving water on the far side of the river, when he accidentally went over the drop-off he'd go completely under, come up and swim back without the target.(yea were keeping the used tennis ball industry in business)

So this last Sunday my nephew and I took the dogs on their daily walk past\to the river. We got to the river and it was nearly a foot higher than normal(dam was down), moving quite fast and a lot cooler than Harleys experienced before.(crazy temp swings this fall here)

I secured Molson this time because he's fearless (until he goes off the deep drop-off and gets carried away with me running after along the shore) and not a strong enough swimmer with the current and colder water. No fear he’s always made it back in one piece, but I’ve seen the current pull him under

Anyways I threw out the first stick, it didn't cross the drop off but it was right on the shelf. I thought for sure he'd hesitate but he didn't he went right after it and even swam out further unnecessarily to turn around.

The 2nd change was his swimming, 3\4 of his body was above the water instead of just his head and he didn't have that big eye'd look of panic\fear in his eye's.

We continued to throw the stick 6-7 times in a row with breaks one time my baseball player nephew made it all the way across the river into some swampy backwater on the other side I thought to myself no way he'd ever go that far after it.

There was one time where Harley stopped in the middle of the deep current and swam upstream to find the stick he lost, it was great to see him just stop and swim calmly in the current to stay in place so he could focus and spot the stick.

Sure enough each and every throw for the next 2 hours was a 100% success, he even started waiting near the shore for the splash instead of running out in the general direction with the target\dummy still in the air.


The last couple nights I’ve worked with him one on one doing some retrieving work and the change has been dramatic.

Has anyone ever experienced such a change, and\or are they common as a dog matures?

Well thanks for letting me share; any advice, experience or stories anyone else is willing to share would be great.

[Swiftwind]

That is such great progress Harley's made, and it sounds like he's really enjoying the work!