I was just wondering how people, with gundogs, who raw feed (I've got too many threads in the raw feeding ) get their dogs to retrieve cold game rather than them taking and eating it.. We're not at the cold game stage yet but I don't know how I will get him to understand that it isn't food... does that make sense?
Never been a problem for my dogs, I believe that how they behave is contextual, so when I send my dog to retrieve cold game, that is what they do, retrieve it, not eat it.
I wondered this too at first - the OH often uses a dead bird to train the retrieve, and then feeds them the same bird for dinner. They seem to know when to be working and when it's ok to eat it?
Ta daaa! Thanks to the help of Leanne; I cannot believe I didn't get a good shot of Flynn retrieving, next time I will! But no tights, no attempts to eat it ( a couple to pluck it and play tug with its head ) and I think I got over my fear of picking up dead animals.. Oh he hates the camera and as I'd crouched to get a good shot of him running - he went a different way - so your very lucky (or I was) to get this shot of him
I don't know - it was just a bit of fun really. He'd be thrown off a shoot he's too dog orientated and won't sit at a flush - he's too on the go all the time. I did think about getting him a job at the local golf courses.. they don't like all the birds on the greens and in America they have an ESS who chases the geese from a local park where they make a mess of the water etc.. so I thought I could do the same here but on golf courses.. I can't find the dog on the net but it was on a programme I watched. So for Louie to do that all I need to do is get a fab recall and he can do that all day - he loves flushing the pigeons from the farmers field (when it's been harvested) I might do some shoot work in a few years with him, but chocolates aren't normally invited and he's not pure (there are some snobby people around here) He's still a baby and still learning so maybe - haven't really got major plans for him..
I am very surprised that you used pigeon as his first cold game! It is generally avoided to begin with as many do not like the feathers. Why did you not use a pheasant or partridge?
I don't know - all Leanne had in the freezer? She was doing some training with Flynn also (You can see Jed in the corner of the picture) but he didn't mind and picked it up fairly easy. He has pheasant wings on his dummy though, don't know if that's helped him or not - but I'm proud of that picture and him.
