New to training

[Woodduck1]

I have a 1 yr old ylf that I'm getting a late start training. We have been training for 4 weeks now and she is progressing great. She is very good at Sit, Here and Heel and we are working on whistle sit. She is picking this stuff up so quickly. My question to you is how many marks should I be throwing her at each session? Right now I am giving her 5 to 6 and she is returning almost all of them to hand. She acts like she can't get enough, but I want to quit with her wanting more. Probably 2 of these she will drop at my feet. If I point at it and tell her "Fetch" and back away she will pick it up and bring it to me. I guess I should start working on hold soon.I also didn't get time to get her in the water yet but if we get a hard rain it stands in my yard in places. She will junp and play in it so I hope everything will be o.k. Any help will be appreciated.

[Sprig Kennels]

Your on the right track. there isnt a fixed number of retrieves that is good for every dog. Each dog is different and depends on the retrieving drive of the dog. You are doing the right thing by stopping when the dog is the most excited. You always want to leave the session with the dog wanting more. If the dropping the dummy continues to be a problem you might want to consider having the dog force fetched but that only depends on what level of dog you are looking for in the end to see if it is worth the work. dont worry too much about water yet until she is fetching and retrieving good on land. water only compounds any problems you have on land and makes corrections much more difficult, especially for a non-force fetched and non e-collar trained dog. good luck, keep up the good work.