Brandon, actually my initial reaction was: tough bird; tougher dog! I have never seen one with any quit in it.
I had a half British labrador, Crockett, that used to whine while tracking a cripple, continually on swimming cripples the dog could see. I never tried to train the behavior out, since it gave me clear knowledge that the dog was on the bird. We were jumpshooting Munuscong one day out of my TDB during the high water years. My hunting partner dropped a black that jumped on the edge of range, his first,on the other end of a small pocket of open water I had found while we were doing aquatic vegetation transects earlier in the year in along the north shore(working in fisheries research had its perks for a duck hunter). I was waste deep in the water slowly sliding the boat through the bullrushes and the dog was inside with the blind up, with my partner shooting out of the front from a standing position-good balance and full shooting arc swing. Neither of us got a mark on the bird. After nearly twenty minutes of Crockett working that bird's scent trail through the half-frozen cattail stands inshore and back into open water, the dog made the retrieve. I was very proud, but I also knew I had to get my dog out of the icewater pronto since hypothermia was setting-in. Got the dog back in the boat, vest off and wrapped my coat inside out around it and started messaging with a swim team water absorption towel. My partner's first comment about his trophy and the dogwork? "Doesn't that whining bug you?" My response, "your whining or the dog's?" Only dog whose ashes I ever kept-they still sit on my decoy workbench. There will be a second urn joining them sometime in the next two years.