Pup is hard on birds

[zachsdad]

Skynyrd, my 7 month old Brittany male is hard on birds and by that, I mean that given the chance, he'll kill every one he gets.

With teal, who is now 14 months, from the time I got her through now, I would wing lock a pigeon , throw it for her and early on she would maul it a little , the bring it to me with a little encouragement. This past fall, she has retrieved doves, quail,pheasants and ducks , always to hand, and if the bird is still alive whne she gets there, it is alive when it gets to me.

If I throw a bird for Skynyrd, his eyes glaze over like a house cat with a sparrow, the first thing you hear is bones crunching and if he is not on a lead, he will try to run of with it. If he is on a lead, I have to reel him in like a marlin.

With training dummies, balls or whatever, he'll race out, pick it up and about 95 times out of a 100 he come straight back at a run and brings it to hand. The other 5 times he'll make a loop or 2 before coming in .

I am kinda at a loss as to where to start to try and correct this. He is one of those that have nearly perfect manners on a lead, but can be a little hard headed at times.

Any suggestions?

[Margaret]

My suggestion is do quite a bit of heeling with him holding a dummy, then advance to heeling while holding a bird.

Also as he gets over excited, go place the bird rather than throw it.

Maybe it might help to teach him to hold your gloved hand so he learns not to bite down, and perhaps get him off birds for a while until he is calm with a dummy. It sounds like you need to think of ways to keep him calmer in his training.

IMO

[zachsdad]

Dummies dont get him excited other than being happy for a chance to run and fetch. Birds turn him into monster. As I said, his eyes glaze over and he acts as if he does not hear or see me. Dead, live, tossed ,placed, when he gets a bird, it is always the same .

[Lab Man]

You need to force fetch this dog, so the problem does not get any worse. I have a method that you can try that I will not post on a public forum. Give me a call at (712) 662-3891. I recomend you get the dvd set Smartfetch by Evan Graham. Good luck

[gonehuntin']

Labman is spot on here. It sounds from your description like you have a potential bird eater. There have been more dogs sent to the boneyard for freezing and bird eating than for anything else. Many pro's consider this to be an incurable fault, one that can only be controlled once it is confirmed. Stop all retrieving and bird work with this dog and send it to the best pro you can find. Be aware that few know how to really deal with this problem. Force Training is the only thing that will correct this mouth problem. Do NOT try to hide this from the pro; tell him that's why the dog is there. If this problem is as bad as it sounds, you can not correct it yourself.

[snips]

To be honest, at his age I would not worry too much. I would certainly not be throwing him birds, that will make it worse, the more he gets away with munching the worse it will get. I would let him grow up more, and be reinforcing the Come command. Dogs cannot munch if they are flying in to you. When he is around 8-10 months use the Ecollar and CC for Come reinforcement, then when you shoot a bird (do not throw birds) he will know Come means Come. You can reinforce Come with a low nick if you did your ground work and dog will know he better get in fast. Do not rush this, let him grow up some....

[zachsdad]

Mark, I'll be giving you a call in a day or so. Best time??

[gonehuntin']

To be honest, at his age I would not worry too much.

I certainly would. At seven months if I hear bones crunching, I get worried and fast.

Dogs cannot munch if they are flying in to you.

Yah, they can and they can freeze as well.

When he is around 8-10 months use the Ecollar and CC for Come reinforcement, then when you shoot a bird (do not throw birds) he will know Come means Come. You can reinforce Come with a low nick if you did your ground work and dog will know he better get in fast. Do not rush this, let him grow up some....

First force break the dog, the collar condition him. The force will hopefully take care of the munching. A collar never cures anything; it reinforces a known command (commands). Hire a pro.

[ezzy333]

Gone huntin,

He just had a pro respond and you preetty much shot down everything she said. It is fine if you have a different thought or method but we shouldn't have to dispote what other experienced people have to say.

JMHO.

Ezzy

[snips]

Gonehuntin, I have fixed many hard mouthed dogs thru ecollar. I have FFed more dogs than I can count, but I do not worry about a 7 mo old. If someone threw me birds I may mistake it for a snack too. The dog might react differently after some ground work and some sharpened Come work when he is a bit older. A ecollar, when used right with the correct timing can work wonders.

[Lab Man]

You can call me any time this week in the afternoon. Good luck

[gonehuntin']

Ezzy; I think Labman and I are on exactly the same page here. I, at one time, was a pro and worked primarily with problem animals. If no one else could train them, they came to me. I worked in a kennel as head trainer where we ran 120 dogs at a time in training when we were full. I saw more problems every month than most see in two lifetimes. In later years I specialized in field trial labs, no pointers, and had great success there. So when I give advice, or see what I percieve to be incorrect advice posted here, you can sure as heck bet I'm going to contradict it, hurt feelings or not.

When you can hear a dog CRUNCH the bones of a bird, you have a potential problem and you better take it seriously. There is not one pup in a hundred does this. This is a problem that most pro's consider incurable if let develop; it is only sometimes controllable. Working with the number of hard mouth dogs I have, I would never let this habit go further. Were it my pup, he'd be force fetched here and now.

[h20fwlkillr]

There are other ways to "fix" a dog other than FF. I would try a spike harness on retrieve birds.

[gonehuntin']

There are other ways to "fix" a dog other than FF. I would try a spike harness on retrieve birds.

What if he stops picking up the birds?

[h20fwlkillr]

You have to worry about 1 problem at a time. Retrieving isn't the problem, hard mouth is.

[ezzy333]

Gonehuntin said

First force break the dog, the collar condition him. The force will hopefully take care of the munching. A collar never cures anything; it reinforces a known command (commands). Hire a pro.

A pro told him what to do just like you advised.

Brenda posted

To be honest, at his age I would not worry too much. I would certainly not be throwing him birds, that will make it worse, the more he gets away with munching the worse it will get. I would let him grow up more, and be reinforcing the Come command. Dogs cannot munch if they are flying in to you. When he is around 8-10 months use the Ecollar and CC for Come reinforcement, then when you shoot a bird (do not throw birds) he will know Come means Come. You can reinforce Come with a low nick if you did your ground work and dog will know he better get in fast. Do not rush this, let him grow up some....

I think this was good advice and agreed with your statement of starting the fix now and not letting it continue.

We can state our thoughts and how each of us would proceed. That is what you and Snips did only you went further and and indicated what she said was wrong. I am not questioning the fact that you stated exactly how you would proceed and I know Brenda did the same. She not only has trained in the past but is still making her living training dogs. Her success speaks for itself.

My thoughts may be different than either of your ideas but that doesn't mean that your methods won't work so I am happy to read how you would proceed and will make up my mind what I want to do. I do know I wouldn't FF a pointing dog at that age and would work on other methods first. I have told you that before. If it comes down to FF there is plenty of time that will take less out of the dog as it gets older. If we were working with a retriever my timing would be completely different.

Lets all read the posts of other people and learn. Lets all keep our advice here on the board so we all can see and learn, and if we want to discuss methods with other people lets do it calmly and politely so no one will be likely to take offense and get their feelings hurt. There is no one person on here that knows more than everybody else. Listen and learn is a great model to adhere to in dog training as it is in most aspects of life.

Ezzy

[snips]

Good thoughts Ezzy. Sometimes people see these things in young dogs and think they have to immedieatly have to "fix" it, when they then overdo it and just make things worse. Instead it sometimes will just go away when you are dealing with a pup if not made a big deal of. (same with noise sensitivity)....If I use the ecollar for working on hard mouth I wait until I have the dog broke on birds then start working on the retrieving, that way the dog is fully collar conditioned and working his birds with boldness. Then working on retrieving is next, if the problem did not get resolved the way I progress with the E, then I would start FF.

[gonehuntin']

I don't dispute the fact that there are as many methods of training as there are trainers. Some methods work better than others. I guess the reason I dispute a lot of methods is that for so many years I dealt with and still do deal with, problem dogs (helping people only now, not for pay) and over span of 40 some years I've seen what does and does not work. Some methods work better than others. The thing I see here, and I don't want to create a lot of controversy by saying it, it's just an opinion, is that the retriever owners over a long period of time have developed a specifiec program of training that is pretty much undisputed for their dogs. It seems to me that pointing dog people have not. There is the West method, The Hickox method, The Smith method, The Long method, The Dobbs method, and many others. I don't feel there should be. I also think that the pointing dog people are a looooong way behind many others in their collar training methods. It's interesting to me to view attitudes on boards as I bounce between them. This board has one attitude. Versatile dogs another. Upland Journal another. Interesting to view them.

Yes, I do feel some methods are wrong, some views wrong, and some techniques dated. In my view, the person that really has it together if your going to run a collar dog is Jim Dobbs. He's been through it all. I like his program. But, whatever works for you use it, and whatever advice you think is sound, take it. We're all individuals and we have to use a system we are comfortable with and understand. System or no system withstanding, if I think that someone has posted information that is incorrect or possibly harmful, I'll call them on it.

[snips]

I also think that bringing birddogs along is as different as nite and day in how Young Labs are started and brought along. I would not dream of FFing a 7 month old pointing dog, but it is done routinely in Labs.

[ezzy333]

Remember what I have said before. The end product between a retriever and a pointing dog is exactly opposite. Retrievers are trained to be undre control almost mechanical while the main attribute of any outstanding pointer is intelligence and independance. The two opposing outcomes require opposing type training. Too many people forget there is no formula that teaches independence. Thats why there are better trainers than others since you must beable to read your dog and no one way works for all.

Ezzy

[gonehuntin']

They are not exactly opposit ezzy if you have a versatile dog that handles either for duck hunting or that you run in NAVHDA. You don't hone them to the extent a great lab is, but they do everything a lab does except that where a lab quarters and flushes, a v-dog quarters and points. I realize pointers are a different ball game, but ywallac would dispute that also.

[Greg Jennings]

a v-dog quarters and points. I realize pointers are a different ball game, but ywallac would dispute that also.

Depends on definitions there. If, with respect to "quartering", you're talking about windshield wiping 30 yards ahead the way a flushing dog would, I would respectfully say that there is a spectrum of what people want from a v-dog. Windshield wiping is at one end and a pointer that retrieves is at the other end.

Just my $0.02,

[ezzy333]

I don't want my dog quartering in front of me unless that is where the birds are. I want to see them running the downwind side of a fence row or a brushy area that maybe 2 or 300 yards to the side of where I am. And then I want to see him cross in front of me to the other side if there is an objective over there. But the quartering I will leave to a flushing dog that has to be in gun range. Had a judge tell me he had never seen a dog go to every objective so quickly as my 2 yr old Brit did in a trial we were running. Made me proud as that is what we have worked on. I just need a horse to keep up as it seems I'm slowing down.

Ezzy

[gonehuntin']

Depends on definitions there. If, with respect to "quartering", you're talking about windshield wiping 30 yards ahead the way a flushing dog would, I would respectfully say that there is a spectrum of what people want from a v-dog. Windshield wiping is at one end and a pointer that retrieves is at the other end.

Just my $0.02,

Not sayin' that at all. I dislike a bootlicker as much as the next guy.

[zachsdad]

Didn't mean to start a fued here.

Let me restate a couple of things here. If he gets a pigeon that will flop and go on, he will bite hard enough to kill it. Zach and I heard him crunch one Tuesday evening. Once it is dead, he'll mouth the feathers off it pretty bad, but has not tried to eat one. Of course, I am right there to take it away.

I have also visited with my breeder who is also a pro trainer and his thinking is along the line of Snips.

He also thinks it could possibly be a possesion thing. He wants it and dont want me to have it. A time or 2 in the past, I just took of running away from him, and he left the bird and ran after me once and brought it along the other.

It is hard to accuratley describe a situation that I can watch and see in person in a way that everyone can see also.

I do appreciate the input. And I will let y'all know how it goes if you're interested.

Bobby

[ezzy333]

Please do

Ezzy

[Don]

This is an intresting site that's for sure. Reading thru here I think the poster called Brenda sure has the right answer. I never started a dog on bird's until they were at least a year old. What good to give a disobedient child a piece of candy? And I would not put anything on the bird that might stick it in the mouth, unless of course you'd like to teach it to leave that object alone. Once the pup grow's up and settle's down a bit, if there's a hard mouth problem, force retrieving fixes it. Force retrieving is done with a hard training buck, I used a 1" dowel held off the table with wood squares on the end's. FF does not teach a dog to fetch a bird, it teaches a dog to pick something up and hold it in it's mouth until told to give it up, it just end's up that the object for the done dog is a bird!

I recall reading years ago Dr. Alvin Nitchman was watching a trial and a dog took off with it's handler screaming "whoa" at it. The dog just kept going. The Dr. mentioned to the guy next to him, "I wonder what he tell's that dog when he want's it to stop and stand still"? Sometimes we do get the cart befor the horse when we train.

[Margaret]

Gosh, I'm out hunting with my dogs before they are 1 year old. But I certainly agree not to start a pup on birds until it has a good foundation of retrieving dummies and then semi thawed birds and then thawed birds.
I never (deliberately) let my pups have a live bird. They don't need me giving them opportunities to learn bad habits. Also any pigeons used must be clean with no old blood on the feathers. Smelly and bloody birds are bad news for retrieve training.

[Don]

Most people are. It just take's me a bit longer to think about it! Everybody say's I wait to long.