I have an 18 month old golden retriever female who has run into an issue. She hunted last year (we are in SD) and she retrieved her first pheasant fine. Due to scheduling conflicts and school, we didn't get to shoot another one last year. This year, we hunted grouse in MT a week ago and she had no problem finding the downed birds, but she refused to pick them up. She acted like she really wanted to but she just couldn't. I tried to keep encouraging her and play fetch with the bird to get her excited, but she would just pick it up for a second and then drop it. She has never been force fetch trained or trained professionally at all, I did it all myself. This is my first dog of my own. She retrieves bumpers, scented bumpers, pheasant dummies, and pheasant wings from the store like a champ.
Since she was 8 weeks old, she has been around pheasant wings that I bought at Scheel's. She has absolutely no problems picking these up and retrieving them, even if attached to a dummy. After the grouse hunt, I cut off all the wings and brought them home. Here, I tried again to get her to fetch them and she would not. I attached them to her favorite dummy and she would only pick it up by the part without feathers. I attached 6 wings, so the whole thing was feathers, and she picked it up by the rope. What a goober. I tried incentives like treats and no luck. I am not sure if she is afraid of the feathers or what her deal is. It's odd that she has no problem with the pheasant wings and has never been afraid of birds before. She was willing to fetch the pheasant wing immediately after she refused to fetch the grouse wing. And, she has caught live birds before while on walks and she has no problem bringing them back to us (we release them and they fly away). I left the dummy with the 6 wings outside in her yard area so she can smell it more and become more comfortable with it.
So, my question is, what should I do next?
Since she was 8 weeks old, she has been around pheasant wings that I bought at Scheel's. She has absolutely no problems picking these up and retrieving them, even if attached to a dummy. After the grouse hunt, I cut off all the wings and brought them home. Here, I tried again to get her to fetch them and she would not. I attached them to her favorite dummy and she would only pick it up by the part without feathers. I attached 6 wings, so the whole thing was feathers, and she picked it up by the rope. What a goober. I tried incentives like treats and no luck. I am not sure if she is afraid of the feathers or what her deal is. It's odd that she has no problem with the pheasant wings and has never been afraid of birds before. She was willing to fetch the pheasant wing immediately after she refused to fetch the grouse wing. And, she has caught live birds before while on walks and she has no problem bringing them back to us (we release them and they fly away). I left the dummy with the 6 wings outside in her yard area so she can smell it more and become more comfortable with it.
So, my question is, what should I do next?