I have never seen this behavior in my dog before

John L

John L

Well-known member
I have never seen this behavior in my dog before. I had a client out and several Canada Geese were downed. Mocha was sent to get the large Canada goose that was winged and trying to get up some speed to get off the ground. She ran down this goose like a cat on the African plains. Running right over it to knock it down then she held it down with her paws and started bitting and pulling feathers from it's neck area.
She has never done this before. This goose was pissed off and she finished it off. Although she did her job in getting the bird I was not happy with the way it played out. The only thing I can think of was that last year she got into it with another large goose that was trying to peck and bite her eyes as she was bringing it back to the boat kicking and screaming.
I think she remembered that goose from last year and was not going to let a goose get the best of her. I'm just glad the client did not want to mount the bird because it would not have had a ful set of feathers.
I can't really blame her for her action and really think she remembered the goose from last year but I would not want to see this kind of behavior repeated.
Any ideas on how to train for this type of situation would be helpful?
 
John,

I had a similar experience with one of my dogs. He got chewed up pretty bad, was never polite to a wounded goose again. After that, I ground swatted any cripple, can't think of any way to train for it or out of a dog.

Bill
 
had a dog get scratched by a wood duck one day... she would crush every wood duck she ever picked up the rest of her life. dead or alive, she would crush the breastbone in it, and never ever get rough would any other bird. she got whipped on by geese and she'd hesitate before she'd crg in on one, and often times look to see if you where going to smack it.

ive got a hunt test dog that occasionally when we're hunting, will rip some feathers... never ever mis handles birds training or in tests (and a lot of dogs only have problem handling birds in tests, the excitment and taste of other dogs and what not), but occasionally just goes to town on a bird hunting. Had lots of dogs that play with a bird in test, or even crush a breast bone just for the fun of it, but picture perfect hunting... never had one the other way around till now. if it only happens occasionally, I can live with it. travis
 
Has this dog been force fetched and collar conditioned? When my dog use to stop and reposition his hold on birds I cured it with a simple here, nick, here. If he's been FF than you could force him on a goose. These are tools to fix problems when they arise. this is also a reason why a solid basics program is so important.
 
My dog Doc does similar things.. Dead birds he retrieves no problem.. Live birds especially Geese.. He make a low growling noise and will bite them in the neck.. they seem to know the goose is still alive and finishes them off..
 
my golden got beat up pretty good when he was young by an angry snow goose. The goose grabbed him on the ear and River dropped him and bite him in the head. Every goose no matter species he chomps the head straight away, he does not play around with them. I have not ever been able to break him from it.
 
she held it down with her paws and started bitting and pulling feathers from it's neck area.


Both of my dogs did this with geese. I did force fetch with Molly last summer using dead geese and that really helped.
Click to expand...
 
My Boykin kills wounded ducks & pheasants before bringing them back (I only field hunt for geese in late season). I posted a question about this to an upland BB & several members replied that their dogs did this too. Many of this BB's members are fussy pointing dog guys (my opinion) and I was surprised they did not consider killing wounded birds to be "hard mouth".

My elderly/retired Boykin would sometimes pull a few feathers out of a dead bird out of pure joy.
 
John
If you go in the direction that we talked about over the phone you should see some results but go gentle with her and when she does it properly give her plenty of praise, but dont forget to give her a good scolding should she start ripping out the feathers. Has I have said you will have to go back to basics with the retreiving and reprogramm her mind. This wont be done in 5 minuets it will take a bit of time, but you should get there in the end, if you run into any problems just send me a pm.
Take care and God Bless
Eddie and Amber
Its all about Building that Bond.
 
I have never seen this behavior in my dog before. I had a client out and several Canada Geese were downed. Mocha was sent to get the large Canada goose that was winged and trying to get up some speed to get off the ground. She ran down this goose like a cat on the African plains. Running right over it to knock it down then she held it down with her paws and started bitting and pulling feathers from it's neck area.
She has never done this before. This goose was pissed off and she finished it off. Although she did her job in getting the bird I was not happy with the way it played out. The only thing I can think of was that last year she got into it with another large goose that was trying to peck and bite her eyes as she was bringing it back to the boat kicking and screaming.
I think she remembered that goose from last year and was not going to let a goose get the best of her. I'm just glad the client did not want to mount the bird because it would not have had a ful set of feathers.
I can't really blame her for her action and really think she remembered the goose from last year but I would not want to see this kind of behavior repeated.
Any ideas on how to train for this type of situation would be helpful?
Click to expand...


My suggestion is to shoot a whole bunch more geese and find out if it is actually a problem, not just a one time thing.
 
I had/have a similar issue with my lab. He has a great soft mouth and is perfect otherwise, and absolutely awesome with waterfowl, but grouse hunting was a different story. I find grouse often flutter like crazy after I shoot them (especially if they got a pellet in the head), and my pup would often just jump on them and start ripping feathers off, despite being fine with crippled ducks, some that even scratched and bit him, no problem. I cured the problem with a combination of simple scolding and waiting to send him for the bird after it had stopped fluttering, sometimes this was 5 minutes or more but he was fine with a non-moving bird. Near the end of last season I trusted him again and it seems not to be an issue any more - time will tell though - this season will be his third and I plan to spend more time on grouse early on until I'm sure the problem is cured.

As Tod says, see if it happens again before worrying to much. A guy I met last season had a very similar story with geese, but his dog only "attacked" a bird once afterwards, as if to even the score and hasn't had an issue since. Good luck!
 
Todd,

I like your idea. We will just have to shoot a bunch more geese and see if it's really a problem.
 
I have never seen this behavior in my dog before. I had a client out and several Canada Geese were downed. Mocha was sent to get the large Canada goose that was winged and trying to get up some speed to get off the ground. She ran down this goose like a cat on the African plains. Running right over it to knock it down then she held it down with her paws and started bitting and pulling feathers from it's neck area.
She has never done this before. This goose was pissed off and she finished it off. Although she did her job in getting the bird I was not happy with the way it played out. The only thing I can think of was that last year she got into it with another large goose that was trying to peck and bite her eyes as she was bringing it back to the boat kicking and screaming.
I think she remembered that goose from last year and was not going to let a goose get the best of her. I'm just glad the client did not want to mount the bird because it would not have had a ful set of feathers.
I can't really blame her for her action and really think she remembered the goose from last year but I would not want to see this kind of behavior repeated.
Any ideas on how to train for this type of situation would be helpful?
Click to expand...


My YLM has retrieved several hundred geese over the last three seasons. I call him the "Ray Lewis, (linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens) of retrievers". He does exactly as you described on cripples. Literally pounces on their backs if they are doing as you described, or he just runs through them like a linebacker sacking a quarterback. Then he turns around and grabs them while they are still dazed from the impact.

Personally, I don't have an issue with him dealing with a bird that is thrashing him with it's wings or pecking/biting him with it's bill. That is all pure instinct, and there is no way I want to diminish my dog's prey drive.
 
Some photos of the "linebacker" in action...

IMG_1177.jpg


IMG_1179.jpg


Imminent impact...

IMG_1106.jpg


After the hit...notice the feather hanging out of Kane's mouth...

IMG_1110.jpg

 
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