Hello all, I'm new to this and this is my first post so go easy. I'm 17 and trying to train my first dog to the gun, he's a 7 and a half month old black Labrador retriever. All is going well with his training so I decided to move onto real game. Started with dried pheasant wings and tail feathers taped to a dummy which was absolutely fine so I moved on to a cold hen pheasant. To be honest he was more interest in smelling it. He did make an attempt to pick it up and carried it a couple metres but then dropped it and that was that. From then on he was just smelling it. So I'm a bit stumped as to what to do next. Do I keep persisting with the pheasant or leave it for a bit? Or maybe it was too heavy to start and I should try a smaller partridge instead. If anyone could give me any advice or tips as to how to get him picking up game confidently then that would be much appreciated.
Many thanks, jamie