Duck dog suddenly scared of water

I have a year and a half old black lab that is supposed to be going on his first duck hunt Friday. He has always loved the water and knows all the perks that go along with training, but today while training with bumpers in a pond he was timid and almost afraid of the water, and had no drive to get into the water to go get the bumper. I tried training on land and he did fine. He was also scared of the bath water after training, which has never happened either. Any suggestions or tips?
 

tucker80

Senior Member
What happened the last time he went in? Did something spook him, or did he receive a hard correction for something? If he was fine before, then something or someone has caused it.
Start with just a swim and lots of encouragement. Help him realize that it's fun. Then short water retrieves building up distance.
If I'm totally off, and there's been no event, then check his ears or anything that could cause a physical discomfort when and if it gets wet.
 
The last time he was in the water was over summer so it’s been a while. We did put a hunting vest on him today and he was training out of his new invisilab dog stand he’s going to be to using so we thought they may have been it but we took the vest off and had him just retrieve on land but he still acted like he didn’t wanna go in and if he did go in he wouldn’t go farther than he could touch unless we made him. He usually has a lot of fun and will run around but he was slowly walking today and acted like he had no drive, maybe just a bad day. We are going to try again Tuesday but he’s never been scared of bath water either, so we’re super confused because before we could never get him out of the water
 
His been shaking his head a lot today too, in and out of the water. I don’t know if something is wrong with his ears because they were fine before today
 

mizzippi jb

Welcome back.
Couple of things could be going on here. Not used to the vest (I wouldn't bother with one until it gets colder) , ear infections or the like. Confusion coming out of a blind if he hasn't been in one like that before. Having said all that and it is in fact just being timid of colder water the desire to retrieve should take over. And the tool you planted with the principles of force fetch should be used (assuming they were carried out in full)
 
The vest was just recently purchased two days ago, I have been forcing him into the water and to fetch the bumper, I have been training him out of his blind on the ground since this August and he comes out of the blind and retrieves with ease, his drive training in the yard is 100 percent but today when I sent him for the first retrieve in the water he came out great got into the water but when he got into the water where he couldn’t touch he came back to shore then I force him to the bumper (which he retrieved) and I gave him praise as he came back but then every single retrieve after that seemed to become more difficult for me to force him in the water
 

MudDucker

Moderator
Staff member
Sounds like an ear infection, but if not, then get into the water and call him to you. Reward and play with him while he is in the water.
 
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