IMO I think your 17 yr. old can get the FF done if he is level headed . This will be a learning experiance for him and will learn from mistakes made. We've all made them along the way. Good Luck.
Thanks for the encouragement with the 17 yr old. And thanks anyway for the discouragement with the 12 yr. old
Yes... we have made some mistakes along the way... but we are fortunate to have two GSP that have amazing hunting instincts. They both HOLD POINT and BACK.
Our young GSP "Molly" was EXCEPTIONALLY gunshy and field shy. At sun up on opening day last Sept. I had her on a check cord. I took her off the cord and said "Go find a bird!" She ran accross the road to a group of hunters that were getting out of their truck and she hid behind their legs! Well... I put her on a check cord and she proceeded to track and put up a Pheasant in 10 minutes. By mid-November she was totally acclimated. No gun or range shyness. Just a craze to find birds! We have one more hunt at the end of Dec.
Molly has not had much opportunity to try and retrieve because the older GSP Emma (7 yr old). Is dominant and usually gets to the bird first. My son once lost track of Emma... she emerged out from the brush at about 500 yd. with a pheasant in her mouth. She brought it all the way back and had to swim accross a 20 yrd canal! Go figure?
But when we shoot the bird Emma will go find the bird... MUNCH it tell it dies... and then move on to her next victim. I think she got spurred the first time she went after a crippled rooster and that led to the MUCHING.
Honestly... since Emma was the first dog we ever trained... we were elated just to see her point, hold, and find the dead bird. We worked on fetch in the the field as noted above. In hind sight... we should have persisted on the fetch.
Now with Molly- we want to teach her to fetch. This is especially true because we are hoping to use her in Duck hunting. Molly has consitently fetched a frozen chucker. Also... Molly is very adept at hunting heavy cover. She is bigger and slower than Emma... but can easily out hunt Emma in heavy cover.
Well... Thanks again. I welcome all suggestions