weimaraner

[**Michael**]

hi chaps, just a quick post, iv got a 9month old weimaraner bitch. iv started to work her a little bit in the field. when we are out doing a bit of ruff shooting she will bring the rabbit back but will only come within 6foot of me and will not drop it . its like she has the taste for rabbit and wants to eat it there and then. any tips on how to get her to drop it next to me or bring it to my hand. many thanks michael..

[Polmaise]

I realise you are new to the forum ,you may be better posting issues such as this in the training section?,although it is more of a behavioural issue within your training.
Maybe one of the mods can do this for you if you are not familiar on how to do it.
You may also get more replies to your issue from the more 'learned' members of the HPR group?

[Rascal]

Popped this here as requested by our learned friend..

Have you tried feeding her before asking her to retrieve a rabbit? Sorry poor joke...

Hopefully one of our HPR folks can advise.

Rascal

[trekmoor]

Michael , you haven't told us if you have actually trained the pup to retrieve . Did you just take the pup out shooting and hope for the best ? I know this sometimes works for some pups but it doesn't work for them all. If an untrained dog fails to retrieve or fails to retrieve properly then you have no training to fall back on when and if things go wrong. If that is what you did then the "fault" is yours and not the pups.

Do not give your pup any chance to run in for or otherwise go out to any creature you might shoot until your dog is 100% good at retrieving dummies of all kinds straight back to hand. Once you have that then you have some training to fall back on when things go wrong and your pup will have a much better idea of what it should do with the game it retrieves.

If your pup messes about while retrieving dummies it is almost certain to mess around even more with a nice hot and juicy soft rabbit in it's mouth. Sort out the dummy retrieves first, then use a rabbit skin dummy, then a dummy with bird wings attached . After that and assuming your pup is 100% at delivering those retrieves begin giving your pup cold game to retrieve. At first use game that has been dead for a few hours or even a full day. Then start to decrease the time interval between the rabbit or bird being shot and your dog being sent for it . Take time over this, don't be in a hurry to send your dog for freshly shot game ....... and certainly do not send it for every bird or rabbit that you shoot ! Pick the birds and rabbits yourself while leaving your pup at the sit while you do so or have someone elses dog do the retrieves while your dog is put back on the lead to avoid any unfortunate " two dogs , one bird" incidents !

I'm not saying your pup is too young to take out shooting but it is too young if it hasn't been trained how to behave and what to expect. I have a habit of sitting down on a convenient log or boulder as soon as any pup of mine has flushed game which has been shot for the pups very first time. I take out a cigar, light it and smoke it from stem to stern before the pup gets sent to retrieve the game. The pup just has to sit and wait until I want to send it and while doing so it gets a good chance to calm down a bit before getting it's jaws around the game.

"More haste from the handler , more uncontrolled excitement from the dog."

Wullie

Wullie

[**Michael**]

cheers wullie. i will try it a few of them tips she was retrieveing the dummys finethen i went to the rabbit skin and that was goin well for weeks. she will bring a bird back no probs its just rabbits. i will keep training her and keep workin on her will just take me a while, many thanks michael

[Naj]

Hi Michael

I am nursing a theory that the HPR breeds that were bred to work large game &/or kill vermin such as feral cats & foxes, like the GSP &, I believe, the Weimeraner, have a different attitude to fur than they do to feather.

Naj

[trekmoor]

I think you could be right Naj but so far none of the 4 G.S.P.'s I've owned ever munched down on a rabbit or on a cat. .......... They were all more inclined to try to persuade cats to play with them !

GSP's had a terrible reputation for hard mouth about 30 years ago . The first two I ever met at a shoot were known as the "Smith's Crisps Dogs " or individually as "Munchit" and "Crunchit !" The breed was lucky and was taken to heart by a lot of shooting folk who wanted more soft mouthed dogs and some of those folk tried to breed for soft mouth. The weimaraner breed was less lucky. It was the show folk and the pet dog folk that took this breed to heart and they bred for looks and colour while giving lip service only to the working qualities needed and wanted in this country.

A weimy lady owner once turned up to a training class I was taking and when someone asked her what had attracted her to the breed she replied that it's coat colour matched that of her 3 piece suite ! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry !

Wullie

[Allyson]

I do not think this issue is specific to gundogs, HPRs or Weimaraners, judging by the number of times similar posts are made?

It is just insufficient training and insufficient motivation.

[trekmoor]

If the "issue" we are talking about is hard mouth towards fur Allyson then I think, in fact I am sure, that it occurs far more in breeds such as weims, GSP's and G.W.P. than it does in work bred labs and springers and cockers. Even birds get munched by some members of the HPR breeds and they are infamous for game crunching in the shooting world. The "average shooting man" does not even think much about training to avoid hard mouth , he expects the dogs breeding to do nearly all the work for him . I hope this attitude continues because it leads towards dogs being bred to be soft mouthed by the simple method of not breeding from the hard mouthed ones !

I am well aware that spaniels and labs can be hard mouthed too but few of them are ..... not in field trialing circles anyway ! Contrast this to HPR trials where I have seen as many as 4 dogs eliminated from a 12 dog stake for hard mouth. That particular stake should have seen even more dogs being eliminated for hard mouth for I rather naughtily examined the bag (of birds) and from , I think, 23 birds I discovered half that bag had the ribcage in . The judges were being kind when they eliminated "only" 4 dogs.

Testing in Germany still goes on for these HPR breeds to ensure that they will kill furred "vermin" such as foxes and cats. If a dog will not kill, it cannot gain it's certificate . These are the traits that were imported into this country along with the dogs. They are the traits that were and are specifically bred for over there but most people in this country do not want a gundog that will set out with the firm intention of killing a cat or any other kind of fur which very much includes rabbits and hares.

In this country these plus traits are minus traits and we try to breed away from them ....... or at least the field trialing people do if they want to be successful in trials. The great majority of show gundog people ..... which would probably mean almost all of the weimy breed folk, don't really have a clue what hard mouth is. They think that because they can see little or no damage externally to a bird or a rabbit then the dog that retrieved it is soft mouthed but this is not always the case.

In field trials , especially in retriever and spaniel trials, every head of game retrieved is examined by the judges . If ribs are "in" even on only one side then that dog is either eliminated at once or is given a 2nd and last chance to retrieve with a soft mouth..... IF there is any dubiety about how closely the game was shot or perhaps allowances might be made for what surface a bird plummeted onto.

I've been taking gundog training classes for the HPR breeds for about 25 years now Allyson and I can assure you that a great many dogs of these breeds are hard mouthed even after many years in this country probably because soft mouth was not deliberately bred for to the same degree as in labs and spaniels. It should be completely unnecessary to train for soft mouth ..... it should be bred for.

Wullie

[Allyson]

Sorry I did not see where hard mouth was mentioned in the original post?

I thought the dog was a) not approaching the handler and b) not relinquishing the rabbit?

Thus this is no different than the GSD who will not approach the handler or relinquish the ball.

Just because a dog will not relinquish and object does not necessarily make it hard mouthed.

Just because a dog will not come back to the owner does not necessarily make it hard mouthed.

The dog is in conflict.

But that is just my personal opinion, I may well be wrong.