4 year old dog stopped retrieving

Champada100

New member
My Boykin Spaniel has suddenly stopped retrieving shot pheasants on his 4th season. Since his first pheasant season, when he was 8 months old retrieving was natural and actually the most impressive of his abilities. I remember many retrieves down steep embankments and retrieving cripples well over 75 yards away. Opening day this year he simply went over to a dead bird, put it in his mouth and then continued hunting for others.

Hoping that was a fluke, but entering the 2nd week, it doesn’t seem to be. So far we have 8 pheasants and several woodcock shot over him with only 2 partial retrieves. He’s gone as far as finding a dead bird and laying down next to it…he has no apparent injuries, nothing bothering his mouth as he will retrieve dummies for countless throws. This week I’ve even brought out a few of the frozen birds I’ve had in the freezer and he will retrieve those happily…not sure what is going on but he doesn’t seem to be interested in retrieving a warm, just shot bird.

Any tips or ideas here? Thanks!
 

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Great example of why all retrievers should go through a force fetch program. Wonder if he got spurred by a rooster. If it were me, I would back off of hunting him and start with a solid program of hold training. Going from a dowel, to bumper, to a frozen bird, then a freshly killed bird.
 
Great example of why all retrievers should go through a force fetch program. Wonder if he got spurred by a rooster. If it were me, I would back off of hunting him and start with a solid program of hold training. Going from a dowel, to bumper, to a frozen bird, then a freshly killed bird.
thats a good place to start.
 
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