hi all

my 8 month old cockers training is going well and on retrieving a tennis ball will sit, hold and present very well but on a dummy the results are variable. when is the average cocker big and strong enough (shes a bitch) to hold a normal dummy? am i expecting too much at 8 months, i carnt remember what my iolder cocker was doing at this age

thanks

At 8 months I'd restrict training to occasional retrieves with a puppy dummy, a full size one is too large and you risk putting her off.

The key is to take things slowly and you will get the dog you want.

I use half pound dummies for a long time into the training and then introduce the odd lighter sort of bigger ones. My aim is to get a good clean retrieve.

I even use the small dummies mixed with all kinds of odd retreive articles in training the older dogs

I never use full size dummies with my cockers. I like every retrieve to be light and easy to manage, this makes the dog super confident with any retrieve it comes across in the future.

I have entered an Open working test with a dog that had only ever had half pound dummies. The test used full size one pound dummies, my dog won the test as he was so confident with retrieving.