Gun Dog Forum

At 7 mos, my gsp was retrieving roosters. I don't believe he was ever injured or frightened by a bird. Now, at 20 mos, he won't retrieve pheasant or quail. He has retrieved a duck in the water though. The only thing I can think of is I have yelled no at him for catching live birds on the ground. Maybe he thinks he can't touch any birds (live or dead) on ground anymore?

If you're still hunting, you should probably postpone it, but force training works and you do not need to be a professional to do it well. You can try other things to bring back his enthusiasm. Clearly, you should. Maybe you'll get good results. I tried many things when my natural retriever (and he is) wirehair encountered a trauma, and quit retrieving. No success, so we eventually did force training. If you're tenacious and determined, take the spring and summer. Go slowly; work every day. Don''t quit.Get it done.

Winchester30 wrote:At 7 mos, my gsp was retrieving roosters. I don't believe he was ever injured or frightened by a bird. Now, at 20 mos, he won't retrieve pheasant or quail. He has retrieved a duck in the water though. The only thing I can think of is I have yelled no at him for catching live birds on the ground. Maybe he thinks he can't touch any birds (live or dead) on ground anymore?

so for the last year you have being doing what ?

Winchester30 wrote:At 7 mos, my gsp was retrieving roosters. I don't believe he was ever injured or frightened by a bird. Now, at 20 mos, he won't retrieve pheasant or quail. He has retrieved a duck in the water though. The only thing I can think of is I have yelled no at him for catching live birds on the ground. Maybe he thinks he can't touch any birds (live or dead) on ground anymore?

I think you hit the nail on the head as far the reason for him not retrieving goes. I would start over with a good retrieving programme.

Have a read through for this for the basic principles regarding retrieving:

viewtopic.php?f=89&t=52499

polmaise wrote:so for the last year you have being doing what ?

Nurturing the natural retrieve...

Thanks Steve. He was just naturally retrieving on land and water. Now just water. Although can't prove it now with the ice.
He will hold bumpers and dummies indefinitely and bring them to me but won't "fetch" them.

bonasa wrote:

polmaise wrote:so for the last year you have being doing what ?

Nurturing the natural retrieve...

You been doing that for Winchester ?..Are you the trainer. That's cool .

PM sent

Sorry. All my posts have to be approved since I haven't posted before. Takes a while.

Winchester30 wrote:Sorry. All my posts have to be approved since I haven't posted before. Takes a while.

Only 2 more to be approved. I'm keeping an eye out for your posts to approve as soon as possible.

Bit's missing ..and I ain't playing that game . Have fun and enjoy the game .

Robert is correct, there are "bit's missing." More info is needed before it might be possible to help you. My initial feeling for what might have gone wrong was that the dog has become too hunting minded. Even natural retrievers can decide they find hunting to be more fun than retrieving . So.....how much retrieve work was done to balance out the pups hunting ?

Bill T.

Could the dog have been spurred? I knew a lab that was a nice duck hunter, and good pheasant hunter that wouldn't retrieve pheasants. She never had much formal training and certainly had never been force fetched. You would shoot one over her, she'd hunt dead, but all she'd do is pin it til you got there.

I think the reason he gave sounds valid and would suggest a beginning point for recovery:

"I have yelled no at him for catching live birds on the ground. Maybe he thinks he can't touch any birds (live or dead) on ground anymore?" quote

Thanks, I don't think he's been spurred and he seems to have a pretty high threshold for pain, I've seen him bounce off a metal sign hard while hunting and not even phase him.
He is very high prey driven, maybe he loses interest in a dead bird or maybe because I have corrected him in the past for catching live birds on the ground.
I have been working him with "hold/ give" with everything from dowels/ bumpers/ dokkens with pheasant wings on them. Should follow up with dead birds now too. I think I have the beginning of FF started? I will continue on with "fetch" and ear pinch.

Sounds like it's time for the trained retrieve. Retrieving is part of the job - not optional.

It won't retrieve birds off the ground but it will take training dummy's of one kind or another and hold them. Just a though, freeze a dead bird. Get it out frozen and thaw for about 20 min and then replace it with the other thing's it does hold on to.

I suspect your right about yelling "no" at it. So you need to fix that or your gonna be right back in the same spot! Sounds like your using farm raised game bird's, quail? Unless you have a very good flight pen and flush them often, they will a lot of time' just sit there or squirmy around a bit letting the dog catch them. If that's the case, you need a helper and a check cor. Then you check cord the dog into the bird, get it stopped when it make's scent and keep your mouth shut all the way. Hold your dog there while a helper flush's the bird. The other way and what I recommend is remote release traps and pigeons. Generally speaking feral pigeon's don't walk around on the ground much when released, they fly. I have found that homer's now and then pop out of the trap and land again right there. Get ferals! While all this stuff is going on, keep your mouth shut! Also return to teaching whoa. A dog well trained will know the difference in the two. What it sound's like you did is tech the dog "no" as an all around term to stop doing something. You'll need to quit that. Keep in mind that most problem's related to the dog start at the trainer's mouth!

If all you have are those game bird's, get a friend and get back on them but, control your dog with the check cord, keep your mouth shut and have the friend get rid of the bird's. Probably they won't go far so check cord your dog around a bit again and them into the same bird. Same routine all over again. Two or three time's while your waiting for your frozen bird to thaw a bit then back to the retrieving. Do a few with the dummy and a few with the frozen bird. what ever you did to get your dog to hold the dummy, do with the frozen bird. When your dog is 100% on the frozen bird, thaw it out longer till you can simply replace it with a fresh killed bird.

Best advice I can give you is pay attention to what your training.

Making progress...using jowl pinch. Dog is opening mouth and taking bumpers on fetch command. Do I still need to ear pinch?
Also, going to shoot some chukars tomorrow. Will save a few dead ones for retrieve training.

Force fetch isn't a do this, try that, see what works game. Follow a force fetch method that is proven. I have Reliable Retrieving A Force Fetch Method by Mark Payton. Awesome DVD and worked for me very well. Also, if you are yelling at a dog because he caught a bird, that is kind of like yelling at a dog that peed inside when you left him home alone for 24 hours. Get a hold of a few books and read them all. Lots of books counter each other but you can get some good advice.

How does he handle other dogs when a retrieve is in progress sometimes a little competition can be a good thing.

Grant

We hunted with other dogs this year, he would beat most of them to the dead bird and lick/ bite a few feathers until the other dog retrieved bird back. (Wouldn't pick bird up from ground).

Today, had him hold a fresh killed chukar. The dog at first had kind of a nervous breathing to himself while holding bird in mouth. Repeated the hold a few times and he relaxed more.