In VA don't you not have to even try to stop the dogs from going on others land? That's what a lot of the guys I hunt with keep saying. The reason being they had someone last year whom apparently was threatening to shoot the dogs as they were trespassing on his land. They brought up to him that the law said that you didn't have to stop your dogs from crossing onto someones land and that you could go on their land to retrieve them as long as you didn't have a gun. Then decided to tell him how much legal trouble he would be in if in fact they did shoot the dogs. Now I have never seen the part about not having to stop them in writing but they all kept saying that and seemed to be up on the laws about it. I know I did talk to the game Warden about going to retrieve the dogs and he verified that you could however, he said if you would just go talk to the owner about it first that 9x out of 10 that they would have no problem with you going to get them.