i have a 4 year old black lab that i pheasant hunt with and is one of the better dogs that i have ever hunted with, he gets on scents and doesnt give up until he gets that bird up but when i shoot a bird he wont retrieve it for me its like he loses intresst in the bird when i shoot it! any advise?

Maybe if he wasnt a sally he would grab it for you.

Im jk, I am friends with BMEYER. His dog is very good. He has thought maybe it has something to do with the feathers? This lab will retrieve Ducks and Geese without a problem, its just those darn ringnecks! please advise!

Did your dog at a young age( less than 18 mounths) get wing beat by a bird?
I have seen labs that ran from the sight of a goose after a beating for a not so dead goose .

I got my lab to retrieve anything when told to by force retrieve training.
I got a book from the libarey that told how to .
Only took a few sesions

I take it that the dog hasn't been Force Fetched ----- correct?

Force Fetch

Correct or not?

bmeyer66, my older GSP sounds exactly like your dog. He does whatever it takes to find the bird and won't give up. But he has never really retrieved....unless my mom out with us taking pictures, then he "shows off." But the two reasons I feel that he won't retrieve is that he hates the feathers in his mouth b/c he'll spit out the bird and shake his head to get rid of the feathers. Also, we hunted him over pheasants probably a little too early and he went after a wounded one and we think he got wing beat and spurred by that rooster. He's a very tough dog but I think it kind of scarred him. I tried force breaking him and all but have never really gotten much.

no i have not tried force fething him yet, i will have to do that with him!

FF isn't too dificult -- IF you follow a correct sequence of events. If you don't do it right, you'll never get what you should. May I suggest you get the book "Smartfetch" by Evan Graham. Most all modern training books have a chapter in them about FF, but "Smartfetch" is a whole book entirely devoted to FF.