I have a Yellow lab who is doing very well except for the whistle training. Some times when I Blow once for him to sit and look at me he will comply and then other times he will kind of drag his butt around until I holler at him. And now all of a sudden he just started changing directions everytime I blow the whistle. Does anybody have any advise for me???

Thanks,
Sanman

How old is the pooch?
What training method (books/tapes) are you using as your guides?
How far along in training are you? (CC?- FF? Baseball? FTP? Stick? etc?)

He is 18 months old and does all the things you asked me about. he even will do blind retreives with a lot of holloring to get his attention. he knows all his hand signals really well and takes those commands great, but he just doesn' t pay a whole lot of attention to the whistle on most occasions.

OK, you answered my first question -- how ' bout the 2nd and 3rd questions.

I' ve used Richard Wolter' s Book and tried some advise from other local dog owners. Like I said before he will do he' ll do all the drills and the lining just fine as long as I holler a little at him but pays little attention to the whistle once he is sent for a retrieve.

SANMAN,

Sorry for all the questions, but the more I know, the more helpful I' ll be able to be. . Wolters was a great book 25 years ago, but most people consider it to be pretty outdated nowdays. I' d suggest you get " The 10 Minute Retriever" (by John & Amy Dahl) and follow it page by page. You can order it directly from their website at www.oakhillkennel.com

Have you " linked" commands? (Like --- SIT/Tweet/SIT)?
Do you use an ecollar?

Yes I can get him to sit on the whistle while he is beside me or somewhat close but not when he gets out far enough to require his real attention. No, I don' t use and e-collar and would like to try and stay away from one if at all possible.

OK, then, the dog understands that you cannot control (or correct) him from a distance. You need to be able to make an instantaneous correction, regardless of the distance.
Therefore,you have three choices:

1. A long (or very long) checkcord with a pinch collar............ or
2. An ecollar
3. Get some running shoes and hustle yourself to the dog, take him to the point of infraction and correct him " on the spot" .

I trained my first Lab with #3 (I' m too old for that now). I use #1 when the distances are reasonable for using a long cord (but when you get out very far, you lose effectivness). Basically, I' ve moved into the modern world of dog training and have found #2 to be excellent, but it must be done 100% correctly to attain the desired result.

What are your reasons for not wanting to use an ecollar?

When USED PROPERLY, an ecollar is no different than a choke chain and a checkcord (that' s a half mile long).