Tired Dog??

[pars20]

Hello everyone,
I have been working with my nine month chocolate lab for pheasant with the occasional quail for several months and today I brought her to rye fields (5 acres) where my friend had planted several birds to try and bring all the steps and hard work together (find, flush , retrieve). She immediately goes to work up hearing me say find em and although she is still a little close in range (15 yds) she worked the field well and found all the birds which were shot by my friend and she found the bird but did not retrieve (pheasants were a little large for her). we were in the field for around two and a half hours (working several dogs) and all dogs were watered several times. my lab continued to do well up until the final bird on her second time of hunting at which time she looked almost disinterested and more or less stopped hunting. she would go out on command, hunt briefly and then return to the area where i was standing. I finished the day with an easy find for her so she finished on a positive note and could not be more proud of her sitting there behind her first rooster, but Im curious what everyone thinks was the cause of the change in her behavior. she is still pretty young and my thoughts is i dragged the day a little long and tired her out but i wanted to see if this was a sign of something more serious as this is my first time training a gun dog. I have taken her training with great intrest and kept all sessions fun with little pressure which has resulted in her growing in excitment and skill everytime out. my biggest fear was her being uneasy around the gun out of nowhere but she has never shown signs throughout the progression of .22 all the way to .12 gauge and she never so much as flinched thoughout the first part of the day so im probably just missing something through inexperience and wanted to post the situation here to get some input or similar situation seen by others. thanks in advance and this site has given me so many great tips that brought my pup to where she is now. (tried to load picture with no luck)

[1114]

My guess is that you're exactly right, the session lasted too long. That's a long time to expect a pup to focus, I'd back up and keep the next outing really short and really fun. Then progress from there...

[Tall Boy]

One or two contacts per session is all you want. A dog can only learn so much in a workout, and it's important to always leave them wanting more.

[Carl Porter]

I agree with Tall Boy. One or two contacts per session will keep the dogs interest. Never work the dog until it loses interest. This is very common for a young dog over done. You want the dog to be excited and stay excited. Cut down on the time and remember young dogs are like kids. They have a short attention span.
Carl