Help with my lab
 

I have a one year old lab. Right now I have her where she will listen very well to me. She understands sit, stay, and will retrieve her bumpers and duck on command. I can make her sit and stay and not fetch until released, then she is like lighting getting it and bringing it back to me. My problem is when I take her to the dove field she acts like she's had no training. She will still sit and stay, but will not watch for birds which I understand comes with experience. However when we're out there she won't even retrieve her bumper. I'm taking her by myself so there's not a bunch if action in the field around us. What is causing her to act up when we're in the field?

Some dogs aren't used to watching for small birds in the air after a few times of you shooting some birds that land right in front of her or she see's the birds fall she will catch on naturally. I used to train retrievers with trever tindle of muddy river gun dogs
hope this helped

You should never mix birds and bumpers in the same session -- except for Blind Retrieves.

Also, this is common behavior for a dog that has not been Force Fetched. You have not FF your dog --- Right ?

Are you following any particular training program ? If so, which one?

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No particular program. What exactly is force fetch? And how do I make her do it. While training in yard no matter what distractions there are, she knows to listen and stay/retrieve on command. Once in the field though it's a different story.

It sounds like you have a good dog with plenty of potential.
To turn a good dog into a great dog, you need to do some great training.

Go to http://www.evan-graham.net/ and take a thorough look through Evan Graham's site. Evan is the author of the "Smartwork" program of training.
There is an explanation of FF, a number of videos etc.

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