In a field trial it won't "help" the dog to retrieve a found dead bird, but a judge should take the bird and determine as best he can that the bird was dead and not caught and killed by the dog. If everything else has been in order the dog should not be penalized. However, there are some judges that will penalize a dog for that. Oh well. You certainly shouldn't try to train for that. You just hope that the birds are good flying birds and train your dog appropriately. I don't believe this situation should be "solved" through training that in all liklihood will cause a dog to blink.
Well yaw, that's the difference between us. What I described are two dogs that I have trained. One who'd had a TON of wild bird hunting prior to his firs trial, as in many years and thousands of birds shot over him. He would routinely bring back dead birds off of the course or pick up a weak, sick, dying bird because it obviously resembled a wounded bird. The dog was doing nothing "wrong" for a hunting dog but it was behavior that cost him several placements. We solved the issue by putting some very fresh dead birds on our training course and taught him to ignore them rather than scoop them up, in the manner I just described.
I also had a pup that got to where he would point a dead bird for fear of moving. It was caused in the exact manner I described by his owner who had used the collar too much in staunching the pup up. He was afraid that even with a dead bird he'd get busted for moving. Yes he certainly knew the difference between the two because he had been retrieving and huntind dead very well as a derby dog but got to where instead of retrieving he would simply point the dead birds even when shot from his points.
That problem was easily solved with a half dozen winged (barely hit) birds that he was sent to retrieve. The first few required releasing him multiple times from the re-points but he finally got the idea.
Of course that did have a slight impact on his steadiness which we worked out slowly over the course of about a month.
Often there can be unforseen and unintended consequences from well intended and logical training proceedures.
Sometimes as a trainer reading the dog, seein the problem, understanding how it was caused, are essential in solving the problem in a simple and logical manner. You dont' have to be a genius, sometimes you just have to think like a dog to understand what might be going through there head and why. CR