Lab HELP

I have a yellow lab who was about 10 months old this bird season. Took him on probably twenty dove hunts. And maybe four duck hunts. He does very good except one thing. He has a very rough mouth and he ate two dove. Now he doesnt do it to every bird just some. The ducks he did pretty good except on one teal. Anyone ever had this problem before. And whats the best way to go about helping him. I just cant figure out why he does it to some birds but on others he doesnt. I mean out of 15 birds he might bite down hard on two or three of them.

You need to have him FF (force fetched) by a good lab man. this will solve most of your mouth problems.

He needs to be solid on his Obedeince proofed
Then force feached. Takes about 30 days to force feach one.

One thing that will help with a hard mouthed dog is to have it fetch a stiff bristled hair brush, or go to a hard wood dowel for bumper work. The eating of a dove while bringing back is a huge issue that you may or may not be able to correct. I had one start doing it (not every time),and he found a new home fast!

X2

I have same issue with my dog. My dog was force fetched, and even has a soft mouth and during training she does not mouth the bumper at all, she holds the bumper very nicely. She does fine on duck, but with dove different story. Not sure what it is with dove, she just can’t resist those little soft, delicate, irresistible birds, and the urge to have a little snack.

Plus when she fetches a dove, she gets the whole bird in her mouth, just the head poking out, those pin feathers come off in her mouth and it makes her mad at them dove. She fires on dove like she is mad when I release her, she has this look on her face like she is possessed or something. The best thing I have been able to do is teach her “easy”, she knows what this means. I teach her hold with a dove, and give her an “easy” till she holds it softly. And when she takes off after a bird I will give her an “easy” and she knows. She knows easy from duck hunting as well, if there are hazardous condition, I give her an “easy” so she does not crash the water too hard and take an underwater stump to the chest.

But really with dove, I just assume fetch my own dove. I don’t have to worry about my dog getting bit by a rattle snake, or worrying about my dog in the heat, plus I don’t like slobbery dove, I like my birds to look all pretty .



So Molly is a duck dog, last 2 seasons I been fetching my own dove.

You helped created some of the mouth problems by putting him on Dove before he knew how to handle birds properly. Dove should be the last bird you let your dog retrieve and after it has been force fetched. The feathers come off very easy and the dogs just get too mouthy with them. I would get the pup force fetched it may solve the problem if it is not to ingrained in him already. Putting young dogs on dove to early can really create some hard mouth issues. I have never had any problems with my dogs on Dove, but they were taught how to handle them with tougher birds(pigeons, chucker, ducks and quail). Force Fetch will probaly help, but you may be stuck with the problem now that he has had so many oppurtunities to do it.

Thanks for all the info everyone. I will try force fetch. This is only the second dog I have trained. The first one I didnt have this problem. I have been using the water dog book as my reference. And I am very pleased with the results. Except for the hard mouth issue I know its probably mostly my fault. But I just want to find a way to get it fixed. And guy you are right my dog acts so much different with dove then anything else. I have hard dummies I train him on. And he is always very gentle with them. But when he gets all the feathers in his mouth he loses it. I wish I would have kept some to train him with. Now towards the end of the season he got alot better I'm just gonna have to work with him on it. But I noticed this to if the bird was shot up pretty bad it made it a whole lot worse. But ducks he had a very soft mouth with except for one teal he just got a little rough with it but it wasnt that bad. But thanks for everyones help. I kinda new at this and just thought I would get other peoples help.

Does anyone know a good website that teaches this force fetched. And is it something I can teach him. thanks for the help

one question... do you have water avail. while dove hunting? that way he can wash his mouth out at any given time he feels the need?

I cary a 5 gallon container of water and a bowl I keep the bowl full and ocasionally throw a hand full of ice in it.

I would not seek internet hep for the first time you FF a dog. It is way too important. I would go to either a UKC hunt club organization or take the dog to a pro and have them do the FF for you. It only takes about a month and the reward you will get is way worth more than you will pay the trainer. What area are you in? Maybe we can find some folks can head you in the right direction?

Im located in Oakwood Tx about half way between Dallas and Houston. I work a bunch and dont have to much money to spend. But I love to hunt and have the company of my dog on the hunt. So any help would be greatly appreciated.

My dog tried to crunch dove on his second season. He's a vizsla not a lab and I was not ready to force fetch him. What I did was work with him on the hold command. First with bumpers then with partially frozen dove. It help a lot but did not total fix the problem. I did fix the problem but its a fix that most trainers won't approve of and you can't use it on dogs that haven't had a season are two retrieving birds.

Thanks kindall. I worked with him last night on hold he does it pretty good. How long do you make him hold it. I made him sit, stay, and come holding. He did pretty good I tried it 5 or 6 times. He always would hold it and give it up real easy when told to give. Now its a hard plastic duck with the throwing string it was a little bit big for his mouth but I think he got the hang of it. But I will keep working on the hold command. thanks.

I started out with him only holding it for maybe 45 seconds and just kept building from there. The main thing is he is not allowed to move his mouth. Tap him under the chin if he tries to move the bumper around in his mouth and always make sure his lips are out of the way. I would give him at least a few days with the bumper before moving to using birds with the hold command. If you run into problems you can always take a step a back.

Kindall the only problem is I dont have any doves. I wish I would have kept some from last year. Will anything else work I might be able to get some Quail. Would that work. Thanks for all the info. And I will work with him on holding.

Its fine to get a couple quail to start with but most dogs that have a problem its with dove. Start checking on craigslist and some of the feed stores for dove.

get a good bb gun and put a bird feeder in the backyard!

Get smartfech by Evan Graham
There are some good sites all so with alot
Of good guys that can help. FF is very easy to do
Sounds scary but It's not

I would not say it is easy to do, at least it is not easy to do right. If you are going to do it yourself, for sure get some training material like smartfech to educate yourself , but I would also complement that with some help from a pro, or someone with experience with force fetching a lot of dogs with a good reputation of knowing what they are doing . Every dog is different, a DVD cannot cover all situations/problems you may encounter, that is where someone with experience can help where a DVD can’t.

When I force fetched my dog, a pro in the HRC helped me, he did the first training session and I watched, I did the second session he watched me. I think I saw him like every other week throughout the process. He did this for free which was very nice of him because I was in the HRC. My next dog I will just pay a pro to help me, or I may have them do it all. The only reason I would do it myself is because I like to take pride that I trained my dog myself, and I enjoy it. That is a good reason for doing it yourself. A bad reason for doing yourself is to save money. As an armature force fetching your dog, you will not do as good a job as a good pro.

I followed Graham's method and thought it was pretty simple.

You won't have fun doing it your self it's not fun for
You or the dog. I have never took pride in FF a dog it sucks. You can't be hot headed and you can not be in a rush. So not just anyone can do it. I have seen some pros that can't do it and some that refuse to do it.
I would agree with GUY it sure is nice if your doing it yourself
To have someone to take you step by step in the process. Is harder to undo
Than just do it right.

I bet you did better on your second dog, right?

Yeah that was the first book I read as well. That book does not say a darn thing about force fetch, I think that is what leads many to thinking it is not neeeded. That books is so old, writen in the 60s? Not sure if force fetch was even invented then.

I'll let you know when that happens. I've never force fetched Paxton.

Good deal, glad it worked out for you and glad to see you force fetch your dog, I’m guessing you see the value of force fetch now. I didn’t buy and watch Evan Graham’s smartfech DVDs till after I forced fetched Molly, I think it would have helped me if I could have watched it before hand. Me and Molly had some come to Jesus moments rolling around together in the yard, those were some good time... .

So your forced fetch Whipple last off season I take? You do force to pile yet?

I did better when I tied my shoes for the second time too, matter of fact just about everything I have ever done a second time, I get a better result.

lot of good dogs back in the 60's and 70's...

Better dogs now.