I don't have any access to live birds but i have a few from last duck season i keep in the freezer. He isfine in the field i didnt stop training him during the whole winter so he never had a chance to get rusty in that department. When i take him into the field hes very enthusiastic on retrievesi have hadabsolutelyno problem what so ever except keeping him on the heel command the odd time, he gets pretty excited. He always seemsvery interested in the duck or dummy I can throw the duck into the water all the way up to his chest and he'llretrieve it without hesitation,but once its a foot further where he has to even think about swimming he wont retrieve it. I don't think he had any mishaps when he was swimmin but like you said it could have been something that i didnt see and he didnt show any signs of. The last time he was swimming was about 3 months ago though so it may have something to do with not swimming for that period of time. I was given two forms of advice from friends.One was to just grab him and carry him in and throw him in but i figured this would either cure the problem completely or make him terified of water all together so i opted that this wasn't the best method to use haha. The other was to just continue to wade out into the water and try and get him to follow. i imagine that after repeated attempts at this he will eventually give in. He is a lab and he has swam before i'm hoping that its just like trying to ride a bike after not being on one for a while and he'll just get back into it without any problems.