How to "soften" a dogs mouth ??
 

My dog is very energetic and loves retrieving. Problem is, he gets overly excited and "chomps" the birds as he is swimming back to me and when he gets them out of the water the ducks are really torn up. Puncture holes in the duck breasts, wings broken off. Feathers ripped out and in his mouth. How do you get a dog to stop/control this ?? Ive smacked him with the gun barrel, stick, hand.... he thinks its a game til I put a #4 in his azz.... Any help is appreciated. ?

That's what Force Fetch is for Pookey. You eatem after he tenderizes them???????????????????????? Could he possibly be out of control?:D

replace his training dumbie with a brush for awhile

Never learned how to "force fetch"

If their not torn up too bad i'll eat them.

He is out of control... I do have a collar to fix that..... You just gave me an idea.

A buddy @ work said to take one of his bumpers and cut the top out. fill it up with concrete and glue the top back on and that will fix him.... is this right ?

was thinking of getting a pet porcupine for his training dumbie.... lol

Dummy wrapped in barbwire worked on mine

[QUOTE=Jordan;647691]Never learned how to "force fetch"

If their not torn up too bad i'll eat them.

He is out of control... I do have a collar to fix that..... You just gave me an idea.

A buddy @ work said to take one of his bumpers and cut the top out. fi

ll it up with concrete and glue the top back on and that will fix him.... is this right ?[/QUOTE]

I thought you had taken care of the obiedence a couple years ago?
Tell your buddy not to quit his day job, you'll have to Duck Tape that bumper back together cause glue don't work.;)

Collar correction will probably only make the problem worse. Does he understand hold? Or fetch? If you command "hold" and give a collar correction, will he understand why you're putting pressure on him and furthermore, how to turn the pressure off through compliance (doing what you tell him to do)? More than likely he will have no idea why you're shocking him and will only either chomp harder or stop retrieving altogether. Force fetch is not about overpowering a dog with pressure until he delivers to hand. It teaches a dog to handle pressure, teaches you what their threshold of pressure is, and most importantly how to turn the pressure off through compliance. In summary, a properly force fetched dog will not cower down or bolt (run for the hills to escape pressure) from confusion of being corrected. He/she will understand how to turn the pressure off by complying with your command, whether it be sit, here, fetch, hold, back, or down. An easy fix like concreting a bumper or wrapping it with barb wire is only masking the problem, not fixing it.

Had one years ago like that. Used a dummy with duck wings attached. Got few of the heavy duty wide rubber bands loaded with thumb tacks through the rubber bands with the points facing out. Problem solved.:eek:

^^^^this worked for me big time.

And to think some people view force fetching as cruel.

Not that you need any confirmation but.......OP-listen to what this guy is saying.

I had a male yellow that was rough on birds for 3-4 weeks and got progressively worse, especially when we trained with live birds. He weighed 70lbs at 7mos and I realized it was not going to be good if I didn't fix it. On the same principal of barb wire on a dummy, I spent $10 bucks on a harness that goes around a live quail/dove/pigeon that has little brass spikes coming out of it. Amazingly, after 2-3 days, I never had a damaged bird again. It saved me a ton of time and heart ache, and made force fetching so much easier. I haven't seen them in awhile, but I'm sure gun dog supply stores still have them.

to add my 2 cents....

If you go through a formal force fetch process and encounter a hard mouth situation you have the opportunity to correct it timely.

Go back and complete force fetch all the way through to the walking fetch drill. Then I'd put the dog back on the table and use a frozen duck, command fetch and hold. If he did anything besides just hold the duck id be on him with a strong NO and possibly a nick. Pull the duck out and start over until he can fetch and hold without mouth issues.

To clarify more, Drake is 3 years old. My dog knows the normal things that I've taught him from watching DVD's and reading books. Sit. No. Lay. He's not advanced to know heel, back, hold, left, right, etc. I dont have $5K to spend to get this dog right which makes me believe I'll just deal with him biting the ducks rather than carrying them back to me. Just figured there was a cheap/easier way to break this habit.

If I shoot multiple ducks, he will get the first one that he sees. Bring it back to me (while chomping it to get a better grip is guess). He will then sit, I will line his face up with my hand and call his name (Drake). He goes and retrieves the other duck and chomps it on the way back. Same with the 3rd duck, etc.

Do you sling ya hand fast or slow?
Pook, bet i can fix him but ya gotta drive down here with him for that to happen. It's not the dogs fault and I doubt any of the less humane suggestions will work very long.

Education is priceless...

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wrap a bird in duct tape and freeze it. use that for his dummy for a while. also the spikey hair brush

I hold my hand out like a handshake and put it in front of his snout.

Raymond, i'll get with ya after duck season