great advice. it's important to remember that our dogs aren't robots!

I have indeed encountered this problem. I don't blame him because he's not from a hunting line but my Golden always used to sprint to the dummy, grab it, and wave it around and run away! Now he retrieves beautifully 7 out of 10 times about a month into serious training. He loves playing fetch now even though he doesn't have the energy of a pup. I have definitely made the mistake of doing it too much and making him bored. He is progressing nicely though. We are now working on steadying and real bird scent is soon to come along with a Dokken Deadfowl goose. At 7 years old he is living proof that teaching an old dog new tricks is not that hard if the dog is willing to learn. Then since he hates fireworks I still have to work on gunshots with him, but that should be pretty easy. I also like to get him interested in the goose hunting gear i.e. letting him sniff decoys and blinds etc. Thanks for some good tips.

rampageingapes-- Preventing gun shyness is one thing...curing a dog who has it is a whole different ball of wax. Don't have space in a comments section to tackle that one but I can write about it in an upcoming blog post. For now, here's some scoop on how to make sure your dog doesn't mind the sound of guns...

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/hunting/2009/07/kaboom-introducing-p...

what do you do when your dog doesn't want to retrieve the bird? I shot a pheasant this year and my dog just stood there and looked at it

The thing that I have found, in order to train dogs is that you have to be repeatitive. Repeat things over and over again, but with treats for the dogs in between so they feel like doing it over and over again. It works

My boykin Jeb is now 16 weeks olds. I have kind of been following Pamela Kadlec's book, Retriever Training for Spaniels. She suggest only two or three retrieves per session and several sessions a day. Anytime we pass the chest where the bumpers are stored he sits in expectation of me getting the bumper and goes bonkers if I pick it up. I guess this does not address the dog that will not retreive but so far it has worked to keep him interested.

excuse my ignorance here guys, but what do you mean when you say "put the dog in the run for two weeks"? Like an large fenced kennel or something? I like to give my pup some alone time as well, but leaving him in my fenced in yard for more than say an hour unsupervised is a little iffy in my opinion. Am I wrong? Should i let him out back along for longer? Thanks in advance for any advice!

Im happy to say Magnum made a great retrieve on a woodcock on the last day of New Yorks season yesterday.
He flushed it out of a hedge row it flew into the field
and I was able to harvest it.I slept great that night
after reading this entry to the blog.I hope to get more
access to wild birds in the future and more great retrieves.

Mutt, from the picture it looks like your dog is an English setter (isn't it nice to read a post without dog name acronyms for a change). That is primarily a pointing breed but they will retrieve, although it often takes some work. I'd suggest working with a dead bird when you come home after a hunt. Younger dogs, and even some older ones, don't care for all the feathers of upland birds coming off in their mouth. So, I'd suggest you wait till the pheasant cools and stiffens up a bit. The feathers are less likely too shed. Also, a rigid bird is more like the training dummy. For this reason, I think it's always better to start a young dog retrieving ducks if possible (geese are too big!). Their feathers are stuck in them pretty good. When I first started hunting with my younger lab she was gang-busters on sharpies and huns in the early season but wouldn't pick up a pheasant later on. She'd stay over it or pin it down if it was crippled (and she could catch it - she was only four months old when pheasant season opened). Roosters were kinda large for such a small dog. She'd invariably wind up with a mouthful of feathers as she struggled to pick it up and then drop it. To remedy this I actually trained her to retrieve pheasants at home in the kitchen. She would retrieve her toys faithfully and she was nuts for treats. So I used all three tools: toy, treats, and dead pheasant. I'd get right down on the floor with her (she loved that!), toss her toy a ways and go nuts praising and treating her when she brought it back. Then pitch the bird but just a foot or two. Get all excited with encouragement. She got the idea very quickly and before the night was through she'd be fetching the rooster plum across the room. Still, in the field progress continued to be slow. She wanted to pick them up but got distracted with all that feathery mess in her mouth. But eventually we got it worked out after many nights in the kitchen. Key here is to never lose patience (especially with a dog that young). The dog must get 100% encouragement. Once they're in the groove retrieving with enthusiasm, then you can work on fine tuning things like more direct route or dropping it out of hand, etc.