Avery True Bird ATBs

[bradleyj]

Hey guys,

Does anyone else's dog seem to have trouble grabbing the Avery mallard true bird ATBs? Seems a little big for my boy... I am taking it out of his mouth and putting it back in all the time the right way, but they seem a bit big.

Thanks,

[DonF]

I was hoping someone else would post here. Maybe none of us knows what this Avery Mallard is, I don't! It sounds like some kind of object for retrieve training. If it is and you have to keep putting in back in the mouth right, I would say it's simply to big. For me, only three things make retrieve training acceptable, a canvas training buck, a frozen bird and a fresh killed bird. I knew a guy up in Momtana years ago that taught his retriever to retrieve using duck decoy's, he thought he had the best idea going. He set out his decoy's, shot a duck and sent the dog. Dog briought back every decoy for him! A friend of mine up there used nothing but a training buch. Dog's first attempt was on a short swin to a small island. Dgo got there fine, started hunting around and stopped and smelled the duck several time's, wouldn't pick it up!

[nikegundog]

I was hoping someone else would post here. Maybe none of us knows what this Avery Mallard is, I don't! It sounds like some kind of object for retrieve training. If it is and you have to keep putting in back in the mouth right, I would say it's simply to big. For me, only three things make retrieve training acceptable, a canvas training buck, a frozen bird and a fresh killed bird. I knew a guy up in Momtana years ago that taught his retriever to retrieve using duck decoy's, he thought he had the best idea going. He set out his decoy's, shot a duck and sent the dog. Dog briought back every decoy for him! A friend of mine up there used nothing but a training buch. Dog's first attempt was on a short swin to a small island. Dgo got there fine, started hunting around and stopped and smelled the duck several time's, wouldn't pick it up!

They are basicly a very poor knockoff of a Dokken's Deadfowl retriever. I have never heard of them being to big, however they are poorly made, the head have a tendency to fall off quickly and they can crack in cold weather. I love the Dokkens for use as a fun bumper. The plastic bumpers seem to me the bumper of choice among retriever guys, but a lot of them seem to have a Dokken laying around, they last for years. The head design on the Avery and Dokken is designed to eliminate the head shake, basically if the dog decides to shake the bumper he gets hit in the head a bunch of times by the plastic decoy head, the dog learns quickly to stop that behavior.

[DonF]

All my bumper's have always been made out of old shot bags and stuff, I think it was called, Kpock. They floated like a cork! I knew guy's that liked the plastic bumpers. They had the one's with knobs all over them. They claimed it kept the dog from biting down. Don't know as I never used one.

[thelast2]

I have used these ATBs I dont care for them they are extremly stiff even in warm weather and absolutly useless in cold weather such as I have here in Alaska, all the ATBs I have bought, Cracked and have been thrown away. The teal sized one is the only one I might consider ever using again because it is a good size for a puppy and isnt effected by being thrown in water. Other than that I would recommend the dokken deadfowl.

[Scott Linden]

I'm kinda partial to my own Real Bird Bumper ... see for yourself: www.realbirdbumper.com. Thanks for your consideration.

[crackerd]

Very nice, Scott! Great utilitarian design. (Also looks like a football with wings - I'd say the Patriots could've used it the other evening taking some shots downfield...) But didn't you know only the duck's "feet" are supposed to be orange? Does it come in any other color(s) - if not I'd recommend making a version of it in green and brown - camo cordura.

My compliments on it - and that comes from somebody with a disdain for Avery anything for retrieving as too hard, too brittle, too much of a knockoff to what's already out there (and not a lot good to say about Dokkens either except that they smell like cat pee after about the third time you use them in the water).

I'm too cheap for any of them - so go with stuffed animals from the flea market for teaching a pup to handle weight displacement (not weight, not size) on a retrieve. And pretty soon they go from this



(9 weeks) to this (7 months)



without missing a beat from their mouths. But if I were buying a "real" DFT - dead fowl trainer - it'd be yours, hands down.

MG

[DonF]

He needs to realize that all a training buck, dummy, is is a tool for you to teach the dog to fetch. Doesn't matter what it's made from. That one of Scott's is nice. No way will the dog relate a training dummy to a bird. After teaching fetch you then have to introduce the bird.

That is a nice dummy Scott, does it float?

[prairiefirepointers]

I must admit, I don't sell many of the Avery trainers. I personally own and highly regard the Dokken DFT as the best retriever trainer on the market, Bar none.