i just introduced my 3.5 month lab to birds. pigeons he did ok but I let him chase down a cortunix quail and he went lock jaw on it, killed it and went to town on the feathers until i could get him and take it out of his mouth. Is that normal to almost wanna eat it?
I have just went through this whole process with my pup. He now is a bird machine. I introduced him to live pigeons to get his drive up! Praise praise praise was the key along with a 50 foot lead so the second he got the bird in his mouth I would praise the hell out of him as I pulled him in. Once he killed one I quite using live and only used thawed frozen birds and repeated the process. Only give him 2 to 4 retrieves a day to keep the excitment up an once he is old enough I move on to the force fetch on to a table this is were he will learn to hold a bird correctly and learn that fetch is a conditioned responce. I would go see a pro for the conditioned retrieve because being a first timer it is easy to mess with dog if you don't know what you are doing. Be over excited through the process to. Also gross birds that have been shot badly or old smelly birds always tempts the dog to become sticky mouthed. Don't rush this process because this the foundation of his job cause problems will come back to haunt you if you don't finish it fully. This only if you are going to use the e collar of course. Get with a pro though it is important. Good luck and enjoy your pup I know I am!
You don't necesarily need to have a pro do this for you. Though it can be very useful to learn how to do this from a pro. My Brit had a huge prey drive already when it came to looking for and finding birds. But he wanted nothing to do with them once they were shot. Didn't get into playing fetch either unlike my previous Brit who took to it from the time I brought him home.
After learning how to force fetch train my dog (WITHOUT the pain of pinched ears, and so forth) we worked together for about 3 months with many evenings spent in the rain, in the dark going through the progressions that now have him holding through the shot (um, most of the time
) and bringing game back to my hand on command. Initially progress seemed really slow, but the payoff has been great. He's awesome now!
