HELP!

This waggish humdinger of a dog uses anything he can pick up as a game token. Last night, he picked up a hammer! This morning, as I stood over him, he reached for a glass knickknack! A few minutes later, he tried to take a small briefcase off a table. He is having way too much fun, and this is beginning to get out of hand. We may need some professional advice.

So I posted this on the Labrador Retriever Lovers Yahoo Group:

THE GINGERBREAD MAN

Guinness, who will be 2 in one month, is driving me nuts (though I can't stop laughing at him). He LOVES playing the Gingerbread Man Game of "you can't catch me..." Once he was old enough to stay out of his crate during the day over a year ago, he began this game of turning me into the retriever. We quickly learned what were his favorite objects to steal and kept them out of his reach -- like shoes, hand towles, anything in the kitchen sink, etc. It is a game with him; he is not being destructive (unless we don't catch him with the object and he has time to mutilate it); he loves making us run after him -- literally.

Nina (and Guinness who is in time out in his crate)

What a good idea to post on the Yahoo Group! There are some breeders and experienced trainers on the group that always give great advice.

I learned that Guinness is brilliant! He is a self-learner! What he is doing is called a “trained retrieve.” He just needs to lean to return the object to me with a Give command. They recommended books to assist with this training. Actually, Guinness is a little genius! I don't have to teach him to take something. He learned that on his own! Now I need to teach him to give it back.

Hershey lived to play fetch. Obviously, Guinness lives to play the Gingerbread Man. He would make a great field/hunting dog. All labs need a job. Hershey’s was to fetch objects – especially the newspaper. He was a pro! Guinness’s job is going to be returning objects to me.

After reading more about the training process, I need to suit him up with training collar and leash, then teach him to return objects to me.

It may be a while before we accomplish this. The recommended book is not an easy one to find and is quite expensive, so I need to see if I can order it from the library on inter-library loan or read the essential parts in a bookstore.