How to Keep Your Retriever Focused Despite Distractions

One of the most sought-after traits that an excellent retriever can possess is unwavering focus even in the face of distractions. A retriever that is driven yet controlled is ideal in any situation. 

There are many things that you can do to work on keeping your retriever focused, but there are two things in particular that can have a HUGE impact. 

Focus Starts With You: Drill In On The Details

In many of my posts, I talk a lot about details. There's a reason for that. Life without detail would be stale. Details bring out the beauty and vibrance in every part of life. The same is true with a waterfowl retriever.

As it relates to keeping your retriever focused, success is always in the details. What do I mean by that?

When you are training, what are you focusing on? Are you paying attention to your dog's body movement? Are you paying attention to everything your dog does before you give it the release command?

Focusing on the details will allow you to unlock some of your dog's very best potential. It will allow you to hone in on the areas where your dog can improve and that will ultimately lead to a dog that performs more efficiently in the hunting field.

Examples of Details to Focus On

• Make sure your dog is properly lined on retrieves.
  
  
• When your dog marks, before you send it, make sure it is locked in on the fall area. If your dog is looking elsewhere, don't send it.
  
  
• When working with a young pup, make sure to end the session before its attention span runs out.
  
  
• If your dog is whining or overly excited, slow everything down so that it learns to be calm. When it's calm, then proceed with what you are working on.

The examples above are just a few of many details to focus on. Focusing on the details will enable you to drill down and sharpen your dog's skills in a way that SHOWS BIGTIME out in the field.

Focusing on the details is like aiming for the bullseye vs. just aiming at the target. If you aim generally at the target, you have a big chance of missing, but if you focus on the bullseye, you have a much higher chance of hitting what you are aiming at. 

Train For Every Possible Situation

Now that you are focused on the details, it's vitally important to prepare for any and every situation that you can face in the future. As we've talked about in our four stages of learning post, dogs are very distinct in the way that they learn.

You could focus on every detail and train it thoroughly, but if you fail to generalize, things will likely fall apart when you are in real-world scenarios. 

Whether you are working with a puppy or a trained dog, you should slowly introduce it to stimulating distractions so that it can learn to be completely focused in all situations. 

As you introduce distractions, you will have to patiently teach your pup that it must perform the same whether there are distractions or not. This will take patience, but if you focus on the details and put in the work, you will have a dog that performs consistently in all situations that you may face (assuming you follow the Four Stages of Learning.) 

Examples of Training For Different Situations

• Teach your dog to stay focused even when other dogs are around.
  
  
• Teach your dog to keep its eyes locked in on the mark while you or someone else walks around and causes a distraction.
  
  
• Teach your dog to remain steady even when multiple birds fall and some even fall right in front of where it's sitting.
  
  
• Teach your dog to sit by your side while you are having a conversation with someone. 

These are just a few of the countless situations that you can train for. Think through where you plan to take your dog and prepare it for specific distractions that may come your way. 

If you will take the time to focus on the details and prepare your dog for any situation that it may face, you will be well on your way to developing your dog into an incredibly driven and focused retriever.  

At Cornerstone Gundog Academy, we strive to develop our retrievers in this way and so do our members.  

Our courses are designed in a way that almost automatically unlocks your dog's potential for being calm and focused even if there are distractions around. It's just a matter of doing the right things in the right order so that the right results are produced.

BuildFromHere,

Joshua Parvin

P.S. Our online courses make developing a focused retriever as simple as watching the videos and then training your dog. If you want everything laid out for you in a step by step system, then click here.