Hello everyone,
This is my first post, but I’ve been following along for the past year ever since I started looking for my first dog. I’ve tried to absorb the advice people have given here and in other forums. I bought a Wirehaired Pointing Griffon puppy in April (Winston). He seemed born with a drive to retrieve. He will fetch balls and teal duck dokken on water or land. He does occasionally get the idea to trot elsewhere with his prize, but I’ll tap him on his ecollar and he’ll come over and place the item in my hand with the “give” command. We don’t play tug of war or keep away, and the only things he is allowed to chew on are his Kong and a giant flossy-chew rope.
I introduced him to quail last weekend. He has a high bird drive and really enjoyed being in the field and tracking down the planted quail, but he chomped on the bird when I sent him for the retrieve after the bird was shot. I think he might have swallowed the first whole if I hadn’t reeled him in with the check cord. He did similar on the following couple of birds where he bit down on them. He would give them to me on “give” once I had him close, but they were pretty mangled. We continued letting him find the birds, but I didn’t let him retrieve after the shot. I didn’t want him to develop [more/worse] bad habits. I froze some of the quail and have been working with those in my back yard this week. He doesn’t seem to retrieve those with much gusto and he still seems to want to chomp down on the carcass.
I live in Memphis and mostly hunt ducks, so developing a hard mouth is very concerning. He doesn’t seem to chew on his duck sized Dokken, but it also isn’t soft and feathery. It’s also large in his mouth, so I think that helps to keep him from playing with it. I’m not sure if it’s a problem that corrects itself with more exposure to birds, if I should get a quail sized Dokken so he experiences something closer in size to small birds, if I should start the force fetch process before duck season, or what I might be missing. I’d love some advice if anyone has experienced this.