A Wing and a Prayer

A Wing and a Prayer

written by Butch Goodwin
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Northern Flight Retrievers  

So you’ve recently added a new, young prospect to your household, and from what this youngster has already demonstrated, you’re sure he’s going to be the best dog ever. You’ve resolved not to repeat the training mistakes you made in the past or that plague your buddies’ dogs.

It’s likely that this young prodigy, who is now probably about six months old, shows a tremendous desire to retrieve bumpers. Maybe you’ve even hidden a few bumpers in heavy cover and cut him loose to discover what his nose is for. I would also bet that he caught on to housebreaking, crate training, and riding in your truck with little trouble. His basic obedience is coming along well; he’s heard gunfire at a distance without any negative reaction; and, generally, he comes when called (if something he’s sniffing isn’t significantly more attractive).

From the genetics passed on to him and the basic training you’ve started he is making few, if any, mistakes and seems well on the way to becoming the celebrity that everyone will want in the duck marsh next year. Your plan is to take him out during the coming season for some simple retrieves or perhaps to learn from your older dog, but his real debut will be the following season. Congratulations, you’re doing a fine job.

Don't toss a wing-tied bird high in the air. Toss it along the ground for the dog to run and chase.

But before you can take him along, he needs to be introduced to birds. Luckily, you’ve met a local fellow who raises pheasants, and you know a source nearby for buying ducks. So, one Saturday morning, you make the rounds and buy a couple mallard drakes and a rooster pheasant. Later in the day, with the legs and wings of one of the mallards securely shackled so that he can’t walk or fly away, you, beaming with pride, turn your anxious young hunter loose to retrieve the duck. He eagerly runs to the bird, takes a good whiff or two, and then, about the time the bird moves its wings or turns its head, your pup high-tails it away and begins to circle the bird, bouncing around and barking excitedly.

You try teasing him with the bird and tossing it a short distance across the yard, but no amount of encouragement, force, or expletives can get him to even attempt to pick up the live bird. He’s curious, but he wants absolutely nothing to do with picking up such a potentially menacing beast!

Where do you go from here? One friend suggests that the pup needs to be force-fetched; another says to pick up the bird, cram it in his mouth, and make him hold it; yet another tells you to take the restraints off the duck’s legs, toss it in the kennel with the pup, and let him chase it around to develop his “prey drive.”

Who is right? All of these ideas might work with some dogs, but none is really the correct answer — the last two could possibly ruin the dog to the point that he never wants to pick up a duck ever again!
Let’s take a look at the mistakes that were made and how the introduction to birds should have been approached.

A youngster’s first encounters with birds should be in the form of a slow, graduated, and positive approach. Since all of his future work will involve some form of contact with birds, a dog must learn early on that birds are not to be feared. Likewise, live drake mallards and rooster pheasants shouldn’t even be on the “short list” for training at this point, as both can be quite aggressive and can quickly strike fear into the heart of even the most eager youngster. If you do use live ducks at some point with a semi-experienced recruit, they should always have a rubber band around their bill — live roosters should not be considered for any but the most seasoned of retrievers.

If you are going to start with live birds, there is no substitute for pigeons. Pigeons are a much more reasonable-sized bird for a youngster to pick up and carry, they have a rather benign temperament, and they’re exciting to chase. Instead of clipping the flight feathers, put a rubber band around one wing to hold the feathers tight together. They can be then thrown or allowed to run with relatively little harm to the bird; the rubber band on one wing upsets their balance in flight, allowing the bird to still flap his wings but not fly very far. Then, when the rubber band is removed, the bird can be released into a coop and is capable of flying again immediately, and the bird can be used as a flyer later on.

Pigeons are also much easier to house, maintain, and transport than either ducks or pheasants. Almost any cage can serve as a coop, and the cheapest cat carrier or plastic bucket with a lid and air holes in the sides works fine to transport them into the field.

Of course there will always be the youngster that is intimidated by all live birds, even pigeons. If this is the case, you must back up even further and start with bird wings. Most hunters who plan ahead for a new pup will clip the wings off some of the birds they kill during hunting season. These can be kept in a freezer bag to be used as needed.

Allow the pup to smell the wing, and tease him with it by rubbing the feathers across his nose. Then, when he tries to take it, praise him and let him carry it around awhile. After he is comfortable carrying the wing, try tossing it for him, and encourage him to bring it to you. If he retrieves the wing without hesitation, try taping a couple of wings onto a canvas bumper for him to retrieve. You shouldn’t find much difficulty moving from a wing to a bumper with wings taped to it — especially if the dog is already accustomed to retrieving bumpers. Just remember to keep it positive and give lots of praise at every step along the way.

Now, the next step is going to be a big one — maybe the biggest step in the whole process: going from retrieving a bumper with wings attached to retrieving a dead bird. The bird can be a dead pigeon or a smaller gamebird that you have saved and kept frozen — your dog isn’t quite ready for mallards or pheasants yet. A teal is about the perfect-sized duck; I also freeze whole chukars I shoot during training every year. Frozen training birds should be thawed or mostly thawed before using them. They can also be refrozen and reused if they aren’t too beat up, but after a couple of cycles of thawing and refreezing, it is probably best to get rid of them.

With lots of encouragement, most young retrievers shouldn’t have any problem stepping up from retrieving a bumper with wings attached to retrieving a dead bird. If he balks, try teasing him with the bird and make a game of it, the same way you did with the wing. When he finally does pick up the bird, turn and walk away — do not lunge for it. This is the problem I get questioned about more than any other, and it is totally man-made.

It seems that the inexperienced trainer is so afraid of his dog crunching or dropping the bird before bringing it all the way to him, he instinctively lunges at the dog to snatch it out of his mouth. This just ensures that next time the dog will stay slightly farther out of arm’s reach, a process that can get progressively worse until the dog circles the trainer without bringing the bird all the way in. Allow the dog to have the bird to carry and be proud of for a while; it’s his prize. Turn and walk away, and he will follow you. Praise him lavishly when he comes close, and gradually take the bird away from him to throw again.

When he is quite comfortable and reliably retrieving the smaller birds, it is time to introduce a dead mallard. If he avoids retrieving the much larger bird, back up to a smaller one and reintroduce the mallard intermittently. He will eventually catch on and figure out how to deal with the larger birds without hesitation.

The last step is to introduce a live, shackled mallard. Make sure that the duck’s wings are tied at the base, and tie his legs if you are going to toss him in the water — on land a duck can’t outrun a dog, but in the water, they can swim and dive. I use a few wraps of plastic surveyor’s tape tied tight for shackling birds as it doesn’t cut into the skin like string does. Again, be sure to put a rubber band securely around his bill: A live drake mallard can put on quite an aggressive bluff, hissing and striking out if he thinks it will work to keep a dog away. It’s better to secure his bill than to have all of your hard work up to this point come unraveled.

Once more, tease the dog with the duck, toss it along the ground for him to retrieve, and he should catch on quite quickly, proudly returning with his prize. Also important is to limit the number of times you toss any wing-tied bird into the air — they don’t have a way to break their fall and will hit the ground quite hard, which can often kill them after just a few tosses. Toss them along the ground rather than into the air.

Let me mention something about mouth conditioning and force-fetching before I close. If a dog is reliably retrieving bumpers but won’t pick up a bird, it’s not that he is disinterested or obstinate — he’s afraid of retrieving something different, in this case, the bird. He needs to be intelligently and systematically persuaded to pick up birds so that later in life he will never give up trying to find a shot bird. At this stage, rushing or forcing him into it might only create a situation where he develops a dislike for live birds. Force-fetching is a great tool but is by far more useful to correct problems related to “mouthing” or crushing birds than curing a dog that shows a fear of live birds.