Learning to hunt by the rules

Now that Ranger is home we are working on his trained retrieve. I got a good start last weekend at a Connie Cleveland obedience seminar and things are progressing well. Since we normally don't hunt by field test rules, Ranger has had difficulty with the concept of picking up a long-dead, cold bird. To anthropomorphize for him. "It's not going anywhere, let's keep hunting and we'll come back for that one later".

Ranger has only fetched live-shot flyers and he prefers to fetch birds from the water or cripples. I've had problems with him with birds that fall on land. He finds them just fine, but only indicates where they are and waits for me or else my other dog, Sue to pick them up. So now, the long-avoided trained retrieve process is underway for my Bubbadog.