Gun Dog Forum

Today, after doing some live quail work with my 12 week old llewellin setter and a buddies gsp, I tossed a frozen quail for both dogs to fetch. Both made nice retrieves. We then threw a frozen woodcock. Neither dog picked it up. I understand that this is common. How would we overcome this? Woodcock is what we hunt 90% of the time here in La.

lawoodcocker wrote:Today, after doing some live quail work with my 12 week old llewellin setter and a buddies gsp, I tossed a frozen quail for both dogs to fetch. Both made nice retrieves. We then threw a frozen woodcock. Neither dog picked it up. I understand that this is common. How would we overcome this? Woodcock is what we hunt 90% of the time here in La.

Hunt him through his first year and dont worry about it. If it's still a problem after this season, ff him over the winter.

I would force fetch him over the summer. As it sounds like you already know, dogs tend to not like retrieving woodcock because of the feathers or something, similar to a dove in terms of like.

Some times they like the fresh woodcock. Sometimes they never want to retrieve them no mater what. FF will fix it regardless, as stated.