Problems with my Dog and need some expert advice!!

[rj440gtx]

I have a nine month old Chessie and have been having problems with his retieving. when i send him out for a dead duck he gets it and plays with it pushing it under water and ends up destroying the bird. he also will bring it to shore and pull feathers off of it. I have practiced a lot with a dead fowl dummie and even tied wings to the dummie and he brings it to me everytime . Any advice would be greatly appreciated I am by fAR an accomplished trainer this is my first hunting dog. thanks

[BadCaller]

The first thing your going to need to do is get your dog in a training program and stick with it. From your yard work to starting cold blinds. That would include force fetching your dog. If your on a budget Fowl dawgs is a decent program. If you want the full monty then Mike lardy's total retriever program along with total marking and collar conditioning. Since your from Southern Nj your in good turf to find a club to train with. In hammonton there are 2 places to train. Bill Thompson has many ponds to work with.

There are many guys that claim they have the balls to the wall dog, but in reality there just a retriever. You want a dog that can run cold blinds, hand signals, being able to mark several down birds, topped with the biggest hurdle "Swim By", leave the dead bird and go for the cripple..... It takes time to get a top flight dog, between yard work and working on field work can keep a guy busy and getting live birds to work with is a pain. But in the end you'll have a dog you can be proud of.

If you come up to Northern NJ drop me a pm. I have all the gear set up in my yard and a pond. Plus loads of birds to work with. 2 things I hate a dog that is not steady, and one that has to be told what to do. I see it all the time, HERE HERE HERE, SIT SIT SIT. But there owners are proud of them.

[alanv315]

"what you'll put into it, is what you'll get out of it" train your dog halfass and you'll have a halfass retriever, my adivise is read, read, read, i didnt even start to train my dog untill i was 100% confident that i could train him the way i wanted him to be finished when it was all said and done

[firefighter520]

Is the dog force fetched? If so did you force fetch with birds as well? If he is force fetched go back and work with birds, enforce the "hold" command and do not except any mouthing of the bird or a hard mouth. This should fix your problem.

[BrettO]

I have a 5 year old chessie that i got when he was 1 and 1/2 years old and was no where near properly trained. While i am not a professonial trainer i belive and have been told that i turned him into a pretty good dog. The best thing i can tell you about a chessie is that they will test you on being the leader of the pack untill the day they die and they will try to get away with what they want to do. If have have not purchased a training collar i would highly reccomend it to reinforce what the dog already knows how to do. If he is bringing you back the dead fowl dummy without any problems and knows the basic commands you can basically use the collar as a leash and he will know that you are in charge and mean business. Make sure that you put the collar on them and work with them a couple of times before using it so they can get conditioned to wearing it. I would reccomend a sport dog brand and they come with an instructional dvd to view before you use it. I had the same issue when i first got my dog but now i rarely even put the collar on him because he doesnt need it any more. If you have any more questions feel free to shoot me a PM and i will try to help however i can.