Force Fetch - hard mouth

[wheels]

I'm almost finished with Force Fetch with my dog. I just introduced actual game. Well, he crushes it. Doesn't chew on it by any means, but clamps so hard I can hear bones breaking. He doesn't do it with bumpers, dokkens, or any other objects. Just the game. If the game is frozen or even partially frozen he won't do it either.

If I have him fetch it from my hand and watch, and talk with him, we won't crush. However as soon as I send him down the table on a retreive he picks it up and crushes before getting it back to me.

Any experience or thoughts on how to cure this?

[stinkycat]

Had a lab that did the same thing. The advise I am suggesting was given to me by an old dog trainer years ago. I did this and it fixed the problem pronto. Take a canvas dummy and cut it open enough to get your fingers inside and push thumb tacks through the canvas facing out. Re-sew the dummy closed. Then use elastic bands to hold on wings from your favorite game. Your dog will learn very fast not to bite down. It did not hurt my dog ONE bit. Sounds cruel but it works and did not hurt the dog. I do remember that I had him hold it and walk around before I starting throwing it for him that way he new what was coming. Hope this helps.

[Knot Tellin]

I have a lab that I want to force fetch break. Any tips. She will not pick up a duck, phesant, or goose. She wants to pluck them. She will retrive a pigion thow and anything else. What is the steps in this training? I do not have a problem with bitting to hard. She easter egg hunts with the kids and does not break a single egg.

[stinkycat]

I would suggest a couple of books.

James Lamb Free has several good books that I have used in the past with my labs.

I have recently read "Best way to train your gun dog" the Delmar Smith method by Bill Tarrant. This book is for training pointing dogs but it had some good ideas for training to fetch.

[wheels]

The process creates an unconditional retrieve, regardless of situation or item. Delivers that item to hand and doesn't drop until you say the word. It's my recomendation that every dog that's going to be hunted be force fetched. Given, a large majority of dogs will fetch without this training, however how many can say it's unconditional meaning the dog never comes back without the game, or the dog drops the wounded game to "get a better grip" and the game runs off, or the dog chews it up or crushes it on the way. Force fetch elminates all that. It will also eliminate your plucking problem.

If you search for force fetch or trained retrieve you'll get tons of info including steps. Or PM me and I'll send you the notes I have on it.

You can also take a look at this for an overview:

http://www.dobbsdogs.com/library/retrievers/index.html

[Super Jigger]

I'm almost finished with Force Fetch with my dog. I just introduced actual game. Well, he crushes it. Doesn't chew on it by any means, but clamps so hard I can hear bones breaking. He doesn't do it with bumpers, dokkens, or any other objects. Just the game. If the game is frozen or even partially frozen he won't do it either.

If I have him fetch it from my hand and watch, and talk with him, we won't crush. However as soon as I send him down the table on a retreive he picks it up and crushes before getting it back to me.

Any experience or thoughts on how to cure this?

Go back to your "hold" command. If he tries to crunch anyting, that is not "hold." Make a correction and reinforce your hold command. Hold should have been installed before the forcing process starts. Most likely, he is also doing the same thing with the plug, but it isn't as noticable without the crunching sound. Once a dog is forced and you have the ability to make the dog fetch, you can shove that bird as far down his throat as possible while he is in the act of crunching that bird and tell him "No, hold" Believe me, he will learn in a hurry that crunching behavior is not acceptable. It sounds unpleasant, but it's not as bad as it sounds. When he does it right, and he will, praise him heavily. Forcing is supposed to eliminate hard mouth.

How old is the dog? Does he have his adult teeth?

[wheels]

If I'm just doing hold he won't crunch. If I have him fetch it out of my hand or off the table with me standing by the object he won't crunch. He knows, he only crunches when I send him away from me so that he can get away with it. If I'm close, he holds perfectly, and not really with too hard of a mouth. Even if I send him down the table and walk (or run) next to him so that I'm standing by him when he picks it up, he won't crunch.

He's got his adult teeth. He's 1 yr 3 mnths.

[learning]

If a dog is hitting game that hard it is almost never fixable. You might be able to fix it on the table or next to you, but once in the field the dog will go back to hard mouth.

[Super Jigger]

You may want to consult a pro. The dog is young, so it may be worth the investment. Your call.

One suggestion is that you try live birds on the table and see if you can get him to do it there where you can fix it. You may have to get creative to find a solution. I am brain storming, but maybe you could be the gunner and have someone else run your dog. If he crunches, reinforce the fetch and hold on the spot. Another would be to follow your dog to a short mark with a live bird and do the same. Both of these have some risk in another area, but if you can catch him in the act, it may be worth it. This sounds like a tough case. Let us know how this turns out. Good luck.

[GO DOG]

I have a young pointer that eats the birds. I was told, an old trick is to take a fresh bird and inject it with castor oil. It must be a fresh bird or it works just like the frozen deal where they won't crunch it. After a couple of shots of castor oil they learn not to crunch the bird. That will be the first thing we are going to work on when I start training with birds again.

[wheels]

UPDATE:

I ended up meeting with the breeder who is also an exceptional trainer. We put the dog on the table, did some bumper work, then frozen birds, then thawed. In seeing the objects he didn't crunch, then moving on to the birds, he was able to notice a very slight moment where the dog shifted the bird in his mouth before the crunch. He kind of rolls the bird back just a touch. He won't do this roll if he's close to me as his "hold" is very solid. So with a few quick sessions on the table with watching closely and stimulating along with "NO, HOLD" if he rolled and it was pretty much gone. I got him to the point where no reinforcement was needed. That was until I moved him to the ground. Then it started again, but with the same fix is improving. Table is still good. I expect once I move him outside, we'll relapse a little one more time. The good news is he was able to pinpoint the problem and it's slowly being fixed.

Thanks for everybody's input.

[Aaron-IN]

I have a female Lab that pretty much did the same thing your dog is doing. I would guess your dog has a ton of prey drive to? As she gets older (currently going on 4) she isn't as hard mouthed as she use to be. One thing I started doing (mind you she is also force fetched) was when she would start crunching the bird I would stop her and not let her retrieve it. I would make her drop the bird, I would pick it up and bring her back to heal. What really worked was doing this while hunting ducks......it didn't take her long to figure out she either retrieved like she was taught to or she didn't get to retrieve at all. Whatever you do, DO NOT nick the dog for hard mouth issues....it will end up causing all kinds of problems.