2 Year Old Stopped Water Retrieving
Posted: Sun May 28, 2017 4:25 pm
I have a two year old small munsterlander who, out of nowhere, all of a sudden stopped water retrieving. He's been solid on all types of retrieval work, land, water, blind, doubles, etc., since I conditioned retrieved him at about 14 months. What could be the cause of this?
Here's some background that might help:
-toe injury two weeks ago. Rear middle toe tore out half way from bed. Toe nail damaged as a result of getting stuck between some rocks in the Black Hills. Put him under to have toe nail completely removed. Had his OFA hip evaluation done at same time. He swam the day of the toe injury retrieving doeken pheasant with the bad toe. I am wondering if this may have impacted him and be the cause. The retrieve was in heavy cover and it took him quite some time. He had to swim over two downed trees that were floating in the water in reeds to make the retrieve. He's never had such a rough request. I'm feeling like I may be the root cause as are all his shortcomings.
-Could this be the beginning of the hormonal terrible twos rearing it's ugly head. Joan Bailey talks about this in her book, "How to Help Gun Dogs Train Themselves", in Appendix A, "The Awkward Age-This too shall pass".....?
-What about a combination of the two thoughts above?
He's not been asked to retrieve since the toe injury day and retrieve. Just the last two failed efforts yesterday and today.
If the toe is the issue(or my request that day), the quik is still exposed and the toe hasn't begun to grow back. What suggestion(s) do you have for my situation. I don't want to reinforce failed retrieval work. I also want to continue to work him towards duck season this winter. Maybe I should just stick to a progression on land until the toe heals. He's doing fine on land.
Cedar has only hunted upland to this point due to my slow maturation process into bird hunting. I only had the funds to pursue upland game these last two seasons. I wanted to move towards new horizons this coming season.
Thoughts.... I'm a first time dog trainer and have done incredibly well thus far... This one has me stumped.
Thanks for your insights in advance....!
Here's some background that might help:
-toe injury two weeks ago. Rear middle toe tore out half way from bed. Toe nail damaged as a result of getting stuck between some rocks in the Black Hills. Put him under to have toe nail completely removed. Had his OFA hip evaluation done at same time. He swam the day of the toe injury retrieving doeken pheasant with the bad toe. I am wondering if this may have impacted him and be the cause. The retrieve was in heavy cover and it took him quite some time. He had to swim over two downed trees that were floating in the water in reeds to make the retrieve. He's never had such a rough request. I'm feeling like I may be the root cause as are all his shortcomings.
-Could this be the beginning of the hormonal terrible twos rearing it's ugly head. Joan Bailey talks about this in her book, "How to Help Gun Dogs Train Themselves", in Appendix A, "The Awkward Age-This too shall pass".....?
-What about a combination of the two thoughts above?
He's not been asked to retrieve since the toe injury day and retrieve. Just the last two failed efforts yesterday and today.
If the toe is the issue(or my request that day), the quik is still exposed and the toe hasn't begun to grow back. What suggestion(s) do you have for my situation. I don't want to reinforce failed retrieval work. I also want to continue to work him towards duck season this winter. Maybe I should just stick to a progression on land until the toe heals. He's doing fine on land.
Cedar has only hunted upland to this point due to my slow maturation process into bird hunting. I only had the funds to pursue upland game these last two seasons. I wanted to move towards new horizons this coming season.
Thoughts.... I'm a first time dog trainer and have done incredibly well thus far... This one has me stumped.
Thanks for your insights in advance....!