Recently I’ve heard a rash of stories about dogs ingesting foreign objects. Two weeks ago a good friend’s springer, Bailey, swallowed a cocklebur while on a pheasant hunting trip in South Dakota. The offending cocklebur lodged itself in the dog’s intestine and eventually had to be removed surgically. Thankfully, Bailey is recovering nicely. And over the weekend, a German shorthair owned by F&S Shooting Editor and Gun Nut blogger, Phil Bourjaily, ate an entire pack of sugarless gum, which can have dire consequences for a dog. Bourjaily spent a sleepless night watching his pup and was grateful for no adverse reactions except for minty dog breath.

But the story that surpasses all is that of a 110-pound Rottweiler named Luciano and his owner Deirdre Murphy Lofft. Seems when Lofft wasn’t looking Luciano sniffed out her engagement ring on the bedside table and decided to make a snack of it. After ransacking the house for a day the Lofft’s began to suspect Luciano and called the vet. They were told to watch the dog and its stools, which Deirdre did religiously. But after 48 hours of sifting through stools with rubber gloves and nothing to show for it they went to the vet’s office for an X-Ray (above), which revealed the ring sitting in the dog’s descending colon—next stop Mother Earth.

“When they showed us the X-Ray, it didn’t even look real,” says Deirdre, “But they said it would be coming out soon.” Unwilling to wait for the dog’s morning constitution, Deidre and her fiancé “put Luciano on a leash and walked him until he had to go.”

Sure enough, the ring had made the journey through the dog’s bowels. “It was yellow gold so it had lost some of its shine,” says Deirdre. “We took it to get professionally cleaned, but I don’t think we told them the whole story.” At their rehearsal dinner the Loffts propped up a framed copy of the X-Ray with the inscription “Honorary Ring Bearer.” Since the incident, which happened a couple of years ago, Luciano hasn’t swiped any other valuables.

Thankfully, Pritchard has yet to ingest anything notable or harmful besides a rubber band and a bunch of bark, but I’m sure some of you dog owners have some stories to tell. Feel free to share. This could get interesting.

Not too long ago I asked if any of you would immortalize your gun dog in the form of a tattoo. The response was a unanimous…HECK NO! In fact, a few of you wondered if I had been sipping too much of the homemade hooch.

But everywhere I look these days dog art (not body art) seems to be gaining a foothold. Just down the street from my house here in Charleston, S.C. is a popular gallery called Dog & Horse. You can get everything from an oil portrait of your gun dog to a genuine statue of your pooch that might require a front-end loader to move. But let me say straight up, there’s no way I’m forking over that kind of dough—often thousands of dollars—for a painting of Pritchard.

I’ve got plenty of pride in my dog, but I prefer the more subtle approach. Maybe a bumper sticker on the truck (I’m fond of the one that reads “My Boykin Spaniel Is Smarter Than Your Honor Student.”). And I’ve always liked the idea of Boykin boot cleaner, like the one with the pointer in the above photo.

How about you? Would you commission a painting or statue of your gun dog? Do you have Labradors or GSP’s on your doormats, couch pillows, throw blankets, and boxers?

Or is a crate in the back of your truck all you need to display your pride?

My oldest brother got into the field trial game while he was still in college. At the time, he drove an old Buick Skylark sedan my father had graciously passed down to him. On the weekends when I was lucky enough to tag along, I remember waking before sunrise, shoving the crate in the Skylark’s back seat (and wedging a 4x4 underneath it so it sat even), loading the yellow Lab inside, and taking off for the trial. Once there, I didn’t notice ours was the only car in a sea of trucks and trailers—no doubt my brother did.

These days my dog rides in her crate in the back of my Jeep. But occasionally my wife allows Pritch in the front seat and, honestly, she behaves like the world’s most chill co-pilot—looking, sniffing, and enjoying the ride. And my good friend and fellow F&S contributor, T. Edward Nickens, says his Lab, Biscuit, always rides shotgun…even when Nickens is pulling carpool duty. Dog in the front seat…three girls in the back. Nickens and I both know it's not the safest mode of canine transport, but the up-sides of smiling dogs and red-light face licks are sometimes too good to pass up.

I know plenty of people who tote their dogs around untethered in the back of a pickup (which I’ve heard is illegal in some towns). But not me. There’s no way I’m taking the chance of having Pritch tossed from a truck on a busy road. When we’re getting around via pickup I drop the crate in the bed and secure it with tie downs.

I’m curious how your dog rides…shotgun, backseat, crate or back of the truck?

Amateur trainers (myself included) often worry most about the holy trinity of gun dog problems—water shyness, gun shyness, and bird shyness. Oodles of manpower have gone into making sure pups never show any of these dirty traits. But often overlooked is a problem that’s more common than all three...a lack of a desire to retrieve. And like most problems encountered in the gun dog game it’s often the result of poor training practices. (For a point of focus we’ll zero in on dogs that are roughly 6 to 8 months.)

According to Mike Stewart of Wildrose Kennels (and breeder and trainer of Duck’s Unlimited Deke and Drake), unless you have the wrong brand of dog for the job, say a Golden that has been show-bred for three generations, you need to “look unto yourself” for the root of the problem. You may have administered a few bad corrections during a retrieve and the dog now thinks its safer not to fool with a dummy. Or, more likely, you bored the dog to tears running countless marks in the same cover—over and over and over again. Here are a few ways Stewart would correct the problem:

1. Sometimes simply switching up your bumpers will help spur pup’s drive. Stewart suggests anything from fire hose type bumpers to tennis balls. When Pritchard started to slack off and lose interest a few months ago I moved from an orange dummy to a Dokken’s DeadFowl Trainer and the difference was outstanding. I also began to limit the number of retrieves per session, keeping her wanting more.

2. If your dog still resists try sitting him at the top of a hill and bouncing a tennis ball down the hill. Keep him steady until he’s ready to burst and then send him off.

3. If the above tactics don’t work, it’s time to give your pup some alone time. Stewart will put a dog in the run for two weeks. He visits the pup just to feed and water it. Chances are, when you take the dog out of the run he’ll be happy to do anything you ask. But make sure you start your retrieves in a new area (not where the original problem occurred) and with a new type of dummy. And don’t overdo it.

In most cases, these tricks will reignite pup’s enthusiasm for the retrieve and hopefully he’ll never lose it.

If you’ve encountered this problem or have different solutions feel free to share. When it comes to dog training, the more ideas the better.