Homers first experience with live birds also taught ME the importance of the force fetch and HOLD. Homer like all young dogs did not like pigeons because of the feathers in his mouth. Homers second live pigeon was hit lightly, he brought it back to me and spit it out at my feet. THE BIRD TOOK OFF the second it hit the ground. In a panic I HAMMERED the thing about 10 yards out and blew it to pieces. Man would I have been pissed if this had been a duck. He dropped several more birds that day and made me realize I really needed to force train the hold command. He was awesome about not dropping dummies so I didn’t take the force fetch to seriously.
The Gun Dog DVD has an entire segment about teaching the force fetch correctly. It is absolutely necessary in gun dog training to teach this force fetch. Holding a wounded bird and hand delivering it is too important to take lightly. Use the method in Gun Dog and you will quickly teach your dog to HOLD NO MATTER WHAT. This step can be taught WRONG with disastrous results, I would not attempt it without seeing the Gun Dog DVD first. Force fetching involves PAIN for the dog so it MUST be done right.
Joe Dynarski.