German Wirehaired Pointer Club of America

[grouse]

I have a 9 month old gwp who I got for replcement for my aging chocolate lab. she has been a great dog except for retrieving. She loves water and will even break ice and on a recent out of state hunt she did great on huns pheasants and even prairy chickens. she even retreived the downed birds. but if I throw a stick a bumper or anything else she will chase it nudge it and then leave it. I have just started to force retrieve her because I would like her to do blind retrieveswith hand signals. and if she won't retrieve a bumper on her own this is the only way I know. do you think this is a good idea with a gwp. I have done it it the past with a chesapeke and he turned out great. that is why I got my gwp is for her versatility which she does great except for this one thing. any input would be apreciated.

[Keith]

I have force trained all my wirehairs but one. Once started the process should be carried out to completion. Most of them took to it real easy and the process didn't take that long. I think it makes them better dogs. I did have one female that I gave up on. She just had some super resentment of the whole process. I had other dogs at the time so I just force trained them and left her alone. They do progress at different rates and you just have to let the dog determine how fast you proceed through all the different steps. It does make the dog a lot more reliable retriever and I really don't know how you could teach hand signals and blinds without a force trained dog. The one female that I didn't finish did fine retrieving on land and she never really was that good a retriever on duck hunts. One time when I was hunting a big lake I took her and her littermate. After dropping the first ducks in the very cold water I sent her on a long blind. She returned without the duck went right past me and ran the half mile to the truck. When I finished the hunt with her littermate she was right there at the truck waiting on us. I never took her duck hunting again. A wirehair to be used for hard core duck hunting has to be carefully selected.