Lightning’s work with the Fetch Game and response to the Fetch cue are now so enthusiastic that it’s time for us to go onto the next step of Formal Fetch training, corresponding to Force Fetch in Mike Lardy’s TRT video. For both TRT and our.PRT program, the next step is  the Walking Fetch drill.

The PRT Walking Fetch is the same as the TRT Walking Fetch with the following exceptions:

• We don’t use ear pinches.
• Instead, we use high value reinforcers such as bits of cheese or meat to build high reinforcement history for fetching and delivering
• We don’t walk the dog on a lead, but instead rely on a high Rate of Reinforcement (ROR) to keep the dog engaged and to shape correct responses.
• We train for fluent heeling on both sides.

As Mike demonstrates in the video, we start with a field of scattered 2″ white bumpers. Then we walk the dog at heel, sometimes on our left and sometimes on our right, past each bumper, turning thru the field of bumpers randomly and often. As we walk,  we want to have good responses for any of the following three variations:

• Cue Fetch, then Sit, then Drop (take the bumper), give treat, then cue Here to continue walking.
• Cue Fetch, then Here and walk past one or more bumpers, then Sit, then Drop (take the bumper), give treat, then cue Here to continue walking.
• Walk past one or more bumpers without carrying a bumper and without cueing Fetch, but cueing Here if necessary, give treat

If the dog isn’t as fluent with one of the variations as the others, we’ll ask for that variation more often, giving us more opportunities to reinforce a correct response.

As the video’s narrator mentions, our goal with this drill is for the dog consistently to show the kind of lunging enthusiasm Mike’s dog shows on each Fetch cue.

But for the PRT program, Walking Fetch also has a broader goal: to develop a high level of skill with all the cues involved. Therefore it’s not time to finish working on Walking Fetxh until the dog exhibits fluency on all three variations, being able to bypass bumpers off lead as well as having great responses to Fetch, Sit, and Drop, plus Here with or without a bumper, while heeling on either side.

The first time I tried this with Lightning, I got great responses to the first two variations, but he could not do the third variation, which doesn’t include picking up a bumper. So for our next session, I started with the distraction-proofing training plan described in the previous post, and at the end, varied whether to cue Here in order to bypass the bumper, or to cue Fetch for Lightning lunge for the bumper. That worked, but Lightning’s enthusiasm for the Fetch was somewhat diminished from previously, probably because he wasn’t quite certain what the rules are yet.

Obviously we’ll continue working on the Walking Fetch until Lightning is completely fluent with both Here and Fetch, and meanwhile his enthusiasm for Fetch has fully returned.

Then we’ll go onto step 4 of the PRT Formal Fetch training, thoroughly proofing the Walking Fetch, which I’ll discuss in a separate post.