WHISTLE COMMANDS

[TennTomm]

How do you teach a retriever whistle commands. I am relatively new at this but my retriever has mastered the " over"back" "sit" "heel", and hand signals. But would like to learn how to get his attention on long retrieves without having to shout his name:?:

[Jeff]

Well sounds like you took the hard road if you have already taught hand signals without sitting on a whistle. How do you get him to look at you to give a hand signal? If you have some kind of command for this should be real easy to get them on a whistle. First off do some yard work, walk your pup around and say sit. Then heel him and say sit again. Repeat this process a few times and then say sit and blow the whistle one toot. Continue doing this for awhile then don't say sit and just blow the whistle. Your dog should get the idea pretty quick like that the whistle also means sit. Then start mixing in whistles while you are playing with him or something. When he figures out to sit when he is not thinking about it he has it down pretty good. Then go to your back pile that hopefully you have already defined in your training. Put about 20 bumpers in the back pile. Then every five or six or more backs stop him on the whistle by blowing it. He should stop and sit, however you need to make sure he is looking at you, so you prolly want a check cord on him so you can teach him that when you blow the whistle you want him to turn and look at you. Once you get pup looking at you give him a back command and let him go get his bumper from the pile. After a week or so of this then add a left pile then after a week of that add a right and left pile. A few caveats here, First DONT!! blow a whistle every time you send your dog back, this will create popping where he will go back and get to the desired spot and stop and look at you. This is a real bad thing it kind of destroys your dogs momentum on back, therefore if you stop your dog every six to ten bumpers he shouldn't anticipate the whistle and should go right back to the pile without popping. Second, don't blow the whistle with pup in the same spot every time, once again don't let him anticipate where you are going to blow the whistle, we want him going back, not stopping.
As far as a come in whistle that is easy as pie, sit dog and walk away from him, get about ten yards from him and blow trill whistle and he should come over to see what the excitment is. If not, then say here while blowing whistle. This command takes no time at all to teach.