Hi Karen,
You miss understood, I don't teach the dog directions using blind retrieves, and I thought that its understanding directions that you were having trouble with not the actual retrieving.
I have to be careful as many novice handlers consider memories and seek backs as blinds, when technically they are not, and true blinds are at the very end of advanced training and therefore require the dog to understand all the commands that should have been taught up to that point. This is why I think you are moving too fast, and expecting too much from the dog. Believe me I know where your coming from, Munsters are like sponges and appear to learn and want to be stretched at an amazing pace, but this can mean they are their own worst enemy. ( I often liken them to the Coyote in the road runner cartoons, they have a plan and determination, but they are so busy running they fail to notice when they have run off the cliff, and then no matter how much they try to run back, they are always going to end up plummeting downwards....beep beep!)
Once they get themselves into a pickle, their determination to succeed can mean when they no longer understand the direction you give them they stick their heads down and hunt for all they're worth, I've had two like that! but if they're in the wrong place to begin with they stand very little chance of succeeding, this can lead to frustration and/ or a drop in confidence in both you and the dog. Worse still if they do succeed, after ignoring you and your signals, for obvious reasons! ( they will often even ignore the stop in such circumstances, and training can begin to unravel quite rapidly!) after all, once you have too start correcting other elements of their training the dog will quickly loose sight of its original goal.
What I think you require is for the dog to have confidence in retrieving further from you in all directions, normally multiple seens are sufficient in teaching the dog left,right and back commands. And then memories for teaching the same with the dog starting further away from you. Its important to remember in directional training whilst you increase the distance from you to the dog its not so important to move the retrieve further from the dog, as once the dog is confident in understanding left right and back, it should run in that direction until it finds the retrieve or you stop it to redirect. So thus with the dog sat two/three dummies are placed/thrown 9,12 and 3 o'clock and you move to an ever increasing distance from your dog at the 6 o'clock position. You can vary the order in which they are picked ( remember to replace the dog after each retrieve) and pick some yourself until you are confident the dog understands the commands. N.B. The first signal is the one you are sure the dog understands, after that subsequent commands for the remaining retrieves may be down to the dogs memory and out thinking the game, if you don't believe me have a second person place another dummy from where the dog retrieved, unseen by the dog and then repeat this direction, you'll be amazed how these dogs think they can out smart our training and by doing so give the illusion that they have learnt something, until that is they meet an equally devious, conniving piece of work like me that is!!
Then and only then do you start to move the retrieves further from the dog, normally by this stage I would have the dog doing 100m+ seek backs to build confidence and ensure straight run outs before moving the retrieve out further than 40m on directionals.
One last thing to remember, the longer your dog is searching for a retrieve, during its training, the more it is losing confidence in both its own ability and your leadership. Its better to stop and sit the dog and go pick the retrieve yourself and reset the retrieve or change the training on that occasion.......now you do know where you put that retrieve don't you? Your being watched!!!
Peter