Gun Dog Forum

Young english pointer was perfect on retrieving last year. Soft mouth, bring bird right to you. All you could ask for. Natural, I did no training what so ever other than throwing him a ton of bumpers.

Fast forward to this year and he is trying to eat the downed bird. He still brings him to me, but the bird is so far in the back of his mouth it looks like the bird is half eaten. Mashed, chewed, you name it.

What if anything can be done?

muckalee wrote:Young english pointer was perfect on retrieving last year. Soft mouth, bring bird right to you. All you could ask for. Natural, I did no training what so ever other than throwing him a ton of bumpers.

Fast forward to this year and he is trying to eat the downed bird. He still brings him to me, but the bird is so far in the back of his mouth it looks like the bird is half eaten. Mashed, chewed, you name it.

What if anything can be done?

One of the many pitfalls of not doing a complete training program.
You need (actually needed a long time ago) to Force Fetch the dog.

.

+1 on the FF...but you didn't see the dog "mashing" on the bumpers all summer long??? Just wondering..

Try a Dokken's dead fowl instead of bumpers

Dog's know when you can correct them and when you can't. When you train a dog and skip steps in the training sequence, you risk the danger of a relapse that you are unable to correct. This is what happened I think. Now the pup is older and has found out how good birds taste and how much fun they are to munch. If the dog had been ff'd, you would at least have a tool to work with. Now you probably have to start at square one. You can skip the ff process with many, many, dogs. You just got caught. That's why I ff every dog I own and when I had a kennel, every dog regardless of breed that came through the gates.

There have been millions of gundogs trained without FF and don't have the issues described by the OP.

There is also millions of dogs been un-trained in the shooting field.

polmaise wrote:There have been millions of gundogs trained without FF and don't have the issues described by the OP.

There is also millions of dogs been un-trained in the shooting field.

Yup. There are also millions of un-trained dogs that are a P.I.T.A. to even be around.

As I said, this person just got unlucky and got caught. You rarely get caught following a program and if you do, there is a ready tool available to fix it.

There is a video series of 27 vids on youtube posted by SportDog collars regarding retriever training from start to finish that also covers FF. I'm new to training myself and my pup is doing amazing following this program. IMO - the FF training is a must. As I understand it it's getting a dog to go from listening when they want, to listening when commanded ( should actually be called force command since it strengthens all commands, but I'm not here to change training terms ). All our dogs by nature actually "want" to listen but the natural urge to do something fun/interesting/tasty is so powerful to them at times. FF teaches them to turn this natural urge off during commands. My lil girl without FF was learning everything rapidly and responding 100% to my commands. The day she learned about birds and came running back to me with one in her mouth she found and caught on her own is the day everything changed! Her natural urge took over and every scent began to turn off her response to me. Although she learns easily and quickly I have back stepped in the training and began FF. For me I need my dog to be 100% responsive to my commands ALL the time, not only for an enjoyable hunt but for her safety as well. I.E. - a flock of birds flew through and she went cross country after them heading straight for the road. When FF training is complete she will be able to turn that urge off and respond to me. FF training in your case ( as others are replying ) would turn off your dogs urge to munch down the bird before it's returned to you. I'm just posting my input to the other replies because at first I didn't see a need to FF a dog that learned easily either.

Thanks guys for the helpful responses. I should have made myself a little clearer. When I said young I mean 15 months old now. I am a traveling salesman and so it was all I could do to teach the whoa and here command along with getting him to handle in the field and that has been taught well in my opinion. I will begin to work on force fetch now. Maybe it will work, maybe too late.

But again thanks for the help.

It is not too late. You are right on schedule for many dogs and there are many others that never have it.

Ezzy

wolfcreek wrote:There is a video series of 27 vids on youtube posted by SportDog collars regarding retriever training from start to finish that also covers FF. I'm new to training myself and my pup is doing amazing following this program. IMO - the FF training is a must. As I understand it it's getting a dog to go from listening when they want, to listening when commanded ( should actually be called force command since it strengthens all commands, but I'm not here to change training terms ). All our dogs by nature actually "want" to listen but the natural urge to do something fun/interesting/tasty is so powerful to them at times. FF teaches them to turn this natural urge off during commands. My lil girl without FF was learning everything rapidly and responding 100% to my commands. The day she learned about birds and came running back to me with one in her mouth she found and caught on her own is the day everything changed! Her natural urge took over and every scent began to turn off her response to me. Although she learns easily and quickly I have back stepped in the training and began FF. For me I need my dog to be 100% responsive to my commands ALL the time, not only for an enjoyable hunt but for her safety as well. I.E. - a flock of birds flew through and she went cross country after them heading straight for the road. When FF training is complete she will be able to turn that urge off and respond to me. FF training in your case ( as others are replying ) would turn off your dogs urge to munch down the bird before it's returned to you. I'm just posting my input to the other replies because at first I didn't see a need to FF a dog that learned easily either.

Excellent post IMO!

Charlie

"Throwing a ton of fun bumpers" also contributed here. Why throw towns of meaningless short marks? The dog doesn't care...

wolfcreek wrote:There is a video series of 27 vids on youtube posted by SportDog collars regarding retriever training from start to finish that also covers FF.

Could you provide a link to session 1 of the series?

Thanks

Boolywooger wrote:

wolfcreek wrote:There is a video series of 27 vids on youtube posted by SportDog collars regarding retriever training from start to finish that also covers FF.

Could you provide a link to session 1 of the series?

Thanks

Don't go cheap and rely on those videos. Freddy king does a series on youtube too. They are a decent reference or supplement, but are not a complete program. Don't assume they will make up for not buying a program.

Bluesky2012 wrote:

Boolywooger wrote:

wolfcreek wrote:There is a video series of 27 vids on youtube posted by SportDog collars regarding retriever training from start to finish that also covers FF.

Could you provide a link to session 1 of the series?

Thanks

Don't go cheap and rely on those videos. Freddy king does a series on youtube too. They are a decent reference or supplement, but are not a complete program. Don't assume they will make up for not buying a program.

The vid series I was referring to is the Freddy King one. I referred to it as by SportDog bec they use the logo on the vids. this is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9bKBr9 ... pvhVYqT_XR . Link starts you at #1 and cycles through all following vids. Being new to training myself I can't comment on what is or isn't a "complete" program. But IMO This is at the least a very informative series to show structured steps to a beginner trainer. From a new trainer point of view, First thought is ( I gota get my dog to start retrieving! ) and you start tossing bumpers. This at least shows there are VERY IMPORTANT steps in between you should not skip to avoid development issues later.