Cody Williams
Well-known member
Just thought I'd see if anyone else has had a problem like I had a few days ago-my Chesapeake, Sage, is almost 8 years old this is his 7th season hunting. I got him at 8 weeks and he has been through the whole modern gun dog training program-obedience, force fetch, marking, handling, lining, the whole 9 yards. He generally performs really well, has his ups and downs like any other dog, but I've been really happy with his performance overall.
The #1 problem that I have had with him is that he is a bit rougher on birds than I would like-he doesn't really crunch them, but marks from his canine teeth will be on every bird that he retrieves-never enough to be a big deal so I've always accepted it as being part of hunting with him. He isn't possessive of his birds and will deliver them to hand (to me at least, he's much more reluctant with other people).
Last week we were out hunting and I shot a goose, it was dead on the water so I sent him to fetch it up. As he was making the retrieve some more birds started working so I switched focus to calling them in, they circled a few times but didn't commit so when they left I realized that Sage hadn't brought the goose back-after calling for him a few times he came out of the cattails across the channel with the goose. I didn't think much of it-he likes to watch working birds so I figured that was what he was doing in the cattails-he got back to the blind and I realized that what he was doing was evidently trying to eat this goose-the skin was gone from one side of the breast, and the meat was torn up so badly on that one side that is was pretty much unsalvageable. I was shocked to say the least, I've never seen him actually damage a bird that badly before.
We ended up hunting the rest of the day, and between my father in law and me we shot 8 ducks that he retrieved-of those 8, 4 of them were pretty badly mangled when we got them back. Again, he wasn't possessive, brought the birds back normally, but they would be crunched when they came back. I probably should have stopped him retrieving, but between flights of birds we would do holding practice in the blind with the undamaged birds he had brought back, which he would do normally, so I would send him to the next bird and it seemed to be 50/50 on what condition the bird would be when we got it back. He wasn't trying to eat the birds, just biting down on them way more that he usually would. I was really at a loss as to what was going on.
We have spent the last week revisiting Force Fetch holding drills with frozen and thawed ducks, and he's doing fine-never crunching birds, etc. I just am nervous to hunt him again, much less have him retrieve birds for anyone else. Anyone have any suggestions?
The #1 problem that I have had with him is that he is a bit rougher on birds than I would like-he doesn't really crunch them, but marks from his canine teeth will be on every bird that he retrieves-never enough to be a big deal so I've always accepted it as being part of hunting with him. He isn't possessive of his birds and will deliver them to hand (to me at least, he's much more reluctant with other people).
Last week we were out hunting and I shot a goose, it was dead on the water so I sent him to fetch it up. As he was making the retrieve some more birds started working so I switched focus to calling them in, they circled a few times but didn't commit so when they left I realized that Sage hadn't brought the goose back-after calling for him a few times he came out of the cattails across the channel with the goose. I didn't think much of it-he likes to watch working birds so I figured that was what he was doing in the cattails-he got back to the blind and I realized that what he was doing was evidently trying to eat this goose-the skin was gone from one side of the breast, and the meat was torn up so badly on that one side that is was pretty much unsalvageable. I was shocked to say the least, I've never seen him actually damage a bird that badly before.
We ended up hunting the rest of the day, and between my father in law and me we shot 8 ducks that he retrieved-of those 8, 4 of them were pretty badly mangled when we got them back. Again, he wasn't possessive, brought the birds back normally, but they would be crunched when they came back. I probably should have stopped him retrieving, but between flights of birds we would do holding practice in the blind with the undamaged birds he had brought back, which he would do normally, so I would send him to the next bird and it seemed to be 50/50 on what condition the bird would be when we got it back. He wasn't trying to eat the birds, just biting down on them way more that he usually would. I was really at a loss as to what was going on.
We have spent the last week revisiting Force Fetch holding drills with frozen and thawed ducks, and he's doing fine-never crunching birds, etc. I just am nervous to hunt him again, much less have him retrieve birds for anyone else. Anyone have any suggestions?
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