bird eating Lab
 

I have a 1 YO Female Lab who has always been a little hard mouth and liked to chomp the bumpers but she would retrieve without fail. Now she is fetching her first real birds (dove) and instead of retrieving she is eating them. Anyone have any ideas on how to fix this behavior?

RE: bird eating Lab
 

Is your dog FF (Force Fetched)?
What Training Program are you following?


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RE: bird eating Lab
 

What you need your dog to understand is that those birds are not hers to eat; merely her's to bring to hand.

I've really never had a problem with any of my dogs eating birds, but I am fairly hard on them when it comes to obedience. I've found that if you never let them get away with ANYTHING then everything else pretty much falls into place.

Force fetching does work. I don't like it, and I hate seeing it done. Which is why I personally don't do it, I let someone else handle that. But in certain cases, my current golden among them, it can really be the ticket.

RE: bird eating Lab
 

If done properly it isn't the gruesome task that it once was.
Evan Graham's "SmartFetch" book is just the ticket for doing FF.


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RE: bird eating Lab
 

She has been force fetched but I may not have done it right. This is the first hunting dog that I have had and the first time that I have trained any dog beyond obedience training. I am using the book “10 min. Retriever”. The book has been a good guide so far. She was given a strong correction yesterday but instead of stopping the behavior she instead started to eat faster in an attempt to beat the correction. If I use the E Collar will it cause her to fear the bird instead of correct the behavior?

RE: bird eating Lab
 

My inital answer is no it won't make her afraid... but you still shouldn't do it if you are unsure.

Different people will tell you different things, and it really depends on how your dog is.

I'll shockDutch with a bird in his mouth, but thats only because he knows 100% (as do I know that he understands) what he is supposed to be doing. And that is coming back to me with the bird... not sniffing around, not taking a different line, not watering the flowers or taking a crap.... just comnig back to me post haste. I've been with that dog and worked with him almost every day of his nearly two years on earth.... we have an understanding and when he tests me... I give him what for.

Reader Digest version: It really depends on these two things:

1) How well you conditioned her to the collar.. ie: Does she know what that pain in her neck means?

2) How well the force fetching sunk in. (also see No. 1) If it didn't take (and this is a better one for Doc) then she may well think that bird is her's for the picking and you are just coming to take it away. If she doesn't understand "FETCH" then shocking her and reinforcing the command is going to be about as good as speaking German to a Chinaman.

RE: bird eating Lab
 

I have only used the collar on Sally once while she was cheating on a retrieve she immediately dropped the bumper. I spent the rest of the day trying to get her to trust the bumper again. We have been using the E Collar for about 3 months now. She responds well to the corrections while doing obedience training but when she is surrounded by distractions it is a different story. I have nicked her and would see her flinch in response but she would ignore correction and concentrate on the distraction. When she is not distracted she fetches just fine aside from her chomping on the bumper which she gets a smack in the lower jaw for. This only her second dead bird to retrieve and that lack of exposure may be the problem but I’m not sure.