Had an interesting little scenario during a my Hazel girl's duck search session yesterday. Had 4 live ducks, with one in a floating trap. I was hoping to save that to reinforce her on the resend but she got out there on the first send and ended up heading towards it so I launched it. She got it quickly and brought it back to hand, good job. Went back out and naturally headed to the same spot first, except there was another duck right there. It wasn't one we put out and seemed dead when she picked it up. Here's wherein got interesting/ funny. She picked it up and took a few steps onto shore and then put it down and immediately went into a back cove. At first I was confused a.d wasn't sure exactly what to do. My first thought was to correct her with an e-collar reinforced Fetch but something gave me pause. The duck was dead and not going anywhere and I started to think she realized immediately that her fun out there finding ducks would've been over way too quick so she went to have fun and find "a better duck." Still not sure if this was good or bad I let it go. She searched a bit more and then came back to the dead duck and I gave her a Fetch from across the lake although I think she was going to do it anyway. She picked it up and swam right back and delivered it.
A few of the folks I was training with thought the same thing: She looked across at us and realized her day was going go be over way too soon and she wanted to go find another, better duck than the dead one that was just laying right where the first one was.
I did confer with my one of the very experienced handlers I was training with that if she hadn't come back and picked it up my thought was to jump in the kayak and paddle over there and force her on it and make sure she completed thr retrieve. She agreed it would've been a good move. But I was equally happy my dog came back to it on her own to complete it. Maybe I'm wrong but that showed me another something in her and her training and made me smile (when at first I was like uh, oh what is this)