Ashleygrove Gundogs

Just taken on a 4 year old Springer. She is not interested in picking up a ball or a dummy. Any advice?

To get Ruby interested if she has never retreived you have to make it loads of fun. Play with her away from Beau so it is just you two. Start with rolling a tennis ball or put a tennis ball into a sock and tie a ribbon to the end to make it flap when it rolls. Wiggle it about in fornt of her and hide it under things. If you can get her interested in it then you can start to throw. Once she is fixed on the ball you can try other things for retrieving working up to a dummy.

No luck on the retrieve for Ruby as yet so we are still working on that. BUT.....I think we have cracked the heal. This morning, for the first time, I walked about 150 yards with Beau healing on the left (she is ok with this anyway) and Ruby healing on the right off lead. I was soooo happy. Made a huge fuss of her and she had some tuna in her breakfast. When we first got Ruby, she would pull on the lead to the extent where her front feet were off the ground.

Well done for getting her comfortable at heel. Spaniels often walk better off lead than on. They are such busy creatures they hate to be restricted. If you can repeat this you can start slipping the lead over for a few yards and then taking it off again so she doesn't see it as a negetive thing. Keep working on the retrieve. Another trick would be to get one of the family to restrain Ruby while you and Beau have a very exciting game of retreive in front of her and see if this gets her going. Make sure you don't pay her any attention while you do this, all eyes on Beau and the competition for your interest may get her going.Have Beau running past Ruby and throw some dummies over her head to really wind her up before giving her a go too. Good luck!