[went522]

Dennis,

Juls has given you a good starting point. The lead insures the dog comes back to your side. Keep your commands simple, short and EXACTLY the same every time. What your dealing with is a "hard mouth" when he sits down and starts ripping the wing/dummy apart. This can be fixed...take a dummy, 2wings and some tie wire. Put a wing on each side of the dummy, use the wire to secure the wings, wrap tight with pliers and snip off the twisted ends so there's a short tag remaining, you'll want the wire to be flush or just a hair above the wing. Wrap with 3 seperate wires, each of the 3 should be on different sides of the dummy. The next time he goes to bite down on the dummy/wings, he'll get an unpleasant poke in his mouth.

I can recall a few dogs I've worked with that had very hard mouths, a couple days of working with this "wired" dummy and they were fixed. One of the dogs is my cousins which I get a chance to hunt over a few times a year, he brings the birds back with a soft mouth and gently lays it your hand every time.

Prior to the wing/dummy method I used large dowels with finishing nails pierced through, it also worked but the dummy method is easier and more effective as it better resembles a bird both in size and softer texture.
Good Luck.

BIRDDOG