When done properly there are absolutely 0 reasons not to FF or CC any dog no matter their demeanor.
I agree almost completely. When the dog refuses to fetch you then you have that "I wish I had done that" thought. Force Fetch is necessary unless it is okay with you for your dog to retrieve when it wants to.
I agree with that completely. "when it wants to" is the key wording there. Forece fetch teaches them to
also fetch "when they don't want to", and to do it under pressure.
But labs love to retrieve, you don't have to teach them this, they do it naturally. They love it, "oh boy this is fun to fetch!". Force fetch
also teaches them "Oh chit, I better fetch fast!!". They need to
also fetch under these conditions.
When I trained my girl Molly 2006, it was my first gun dog to train. I got retriever puppy DVD, I cant remember then name of it, I let someone use it and never got it back. But that was a great DVD. And then I read water dog. So after all this, I knew nothing about force fetch. I first leaned about force fetch from this forum actually. Back then I don't think there was much on the internet either. So in june/jul 2006, Molly is 10 months old, she is fetching great, I have her sitting and holding, all without force fetch. I joined an HRC, they explained the concept of FF to me a little, but I still did not understand it very well, especially why I needed it. Not really understanding it completely but everyone telling me I need it, I decided I would pay a pro to do it, I knew she would be done before dove season. So this pro I wanted to use, he was already full, and it was getting hot, he did not want to take on another pup. But he said he would help me (train me) for me to FF Molly myself. I meet with him weekly, he gave me new drills, he watched me do them, I worked on it all week, next week review and new drill.... It worked great. I did the same thing with Tara summer 2017.
But before we got started with Molly force fetch summer 2006, I'm still trying to understand why I need to do this, so I ask the pro. "Why do I need this", he said because you want your dog to fire on the bumper. I said Molly will fire on a bumper. He lays a bumper down, and says "tell her to fetch it", I tell Molly fetch and she fetches it like a bolt of lighting and holds it. We both started laughing because she fetch it so fast. But one thing I learned, Molly fetched because she "wanted to", it was fun for her. When the tone of my voice changed from a fun "go get it girl" to a not so fun ear pinch fetch command (pain goes away when bumper is in mouth), she wanted no part of that. This is not fun. This is not natural. But once they learn they are in control and can avoid the pressure by fetching fast, and don't even think about not fetching, life is great, and they are a fetching machine, they are now hard wired to fetch under any condition.
This is a short little 18 second video of Molly, this is 2012 west youth season, this was Molly's first duck hunt of the season, we got to west texas motel late at night, unloading the gear, Molly all excited she knows we getting ready to hunt. I pull her collar out to charge it up, she sees that and says "strap that baby on!". But that is what you want. At her age then, 7 years old, I normally put collar on her first hunt of season in case she decides to break or creep which he always seem to do, but one correction and she was good for the season.