Chews on the Fowl

[spearingboy]

Hey everyone. Was out hunting this morning and we mananged to knock a few geese down. Sent the dog to retreive them and she did alright until she was about 5 yards away. She dropped the birds and started kind of chewing at them while pulling chunks of feathers out. I commanded her to fetch it up and heel but she just kept at it. Like I said she did fine bringing them in until a little ways away. She does the same with ducks. It's almost like it's a game for her to pluck the feathers out and she doesn't like to get a good firm grip on the birds. Can anyone help me out with some way to correct this? Thanks a lot.

[captkev]

My advice is to find a repuitable trainer and ask them about "Force Breaking". Also do a search on the web to find out more, I could go into details, but I'm not a pro and there is many differant methods. But I can tell you that it works.

[blackdog27]

I agree have the dog force broke. But like captkev said, unless you have done it before, find the help of a trainer.

[Benny]

You can try running away from the dog as it comes to you, some times they want to be by you so bad they run faster to catch up, then stop and take the bird right away.

Praise the dog and try it again next time.

If the dog is still doing it then your going to have to have the dog force fetched as the others said.

My lab was force fetched, it looks like she is chewing or biting down on the birds when she gets close to me.

But the trainer said she is just trying to get the feathers out of her mouth as the birds don't have any teeth marks.

She is a soft mouth, so I had to work with her after the training to get her to hold the bird till I said to give.

She would drop rhem at me feet or 5 feet away, then heal up.

She now will hold for a few minutes till I get there and tell her to give.

Benny

[jblabsnduck]

Read up on force fetching and do it yourself. It is not that hard to teach your dog.

Sorry, but to many guys on here like to say take the dog to a trainer. There is no need to do that for force fetching.

My father in law is a trainer so I am not knocking trainers by any means but a lot of guys think that is the only answer, they are wrong.

Yes, call a trainer for input but there is no need to take the dog to a trainer.

[captkev]

Well you can learn from a book, but when I first tryed force breaking, the trainer that was showing me kept pointing out the do's and don'ts to me. Every dog is differant, in temperment and some dogs are soft. If you dont have the experiance to read the dog then I think you might do more harm than good, just pick up the phone and call a few trainers, I bet you'll get a differant anwser and method from each one, same as books, heck I saw a book once that showed pictures of the trainer down on his hands and knees with the bumper in his mouth and I can promise you that I did'nt read much further, SEEKING the advice of a pro-trainer is never bad advice the method you choose to use in the end is your own choice.