ORIGINAL: Doc E
Get on a good - modern - sequential training program.
It sounds like you are just winging it on your own.
A good one for the newbie trainer is the "10 Minute Retriever" by John and Amy Dahl.
I thought about getting that book, but reading the reviews it looks like a lot of force fetching and useing a shock collar. Or are there other techniqeus (sp?) in the book? Not sure I want to use pain to train my dog, because I assume other have
NOT used pain in their training and have welled trained dogs........