New Brittany Help

[Jblightsey]

Just got a 10 month old Brittany and what an obedient dog. She listens great, great personality. The breeder that I got her from said she was a "light" dog when it comes to training, what does this mean. Also, worked her with a live, small chukar and she did awesome, found the bird, retreived it well, but after the third or fourth retrieve she would not let go and ate half the bird. Does this mean she is hard mouthed? First retrieves she held the bird real tight and eventually killed it. What do I do, I have not worked her with anymore birds since.

[Jblightsey]

This is my first bird dog and any advice would be great.

[jcbuttry8]

I always played fetch with a scrub brush. Nothing big. If they needed a little help, i would put some quail or pheasant scent on it. Kept them from biting down on birds. Soft bristle works just fine.

Joe

[Chukar12]

Where to start...
This puppy sounds like it has plenty of desire to prey on birds, however it is a pointing dog and assumably that is what your purpose will be? If so, and you are comfortable with obedience you will want to start developing pointing instinct and their are dozens of methods and directions you can take with this. Pointing dog training and or breaking is done in steps and it is my opinion that you should establish a methodology to do it with. I think one of the easiest methods to begin with is the one currently championed by Maurice Lindley and others of the West Gibbons occult . There is a book called training with Mo and a companion video I would run down.

Short of that effort, you should either acquire some pigeons, a check cord and launching system or work exclusively on wild birds and curtail the dog continuing to catch birds it is detrimental to further development at ten months old if the dog is confident on birds.