How to check game properly for hard mouth?

[PrairieBoy]

Have to say I have always been suspicious of dogs in trials in Canada that are in a frenzy to snap up the bird as quickly as possible and mouth it a couple times needlessly.
I have never had the opportunity to examine the bird but have drawn the conclusion in my mind that it was a collar trained dog.

[Naj]

[*]The vague comment above saying as long as it's not ripped appart or has broken ribs says it all ....... hence my fist comment. ?...... scary!!!!

You have to remember that this is an International forum & that different countries have a different perspective on these issues.

Naj

[Alice]

[*]The vague comment above saying as long as it's not ripped appart or has broken ribs says it all ....... hence my fist comment. ?...... scary!!!!

You have to remember that this is an International forum & that different countries have a different perspective on these issues.

Naj

Yes. And even within this country, acceptable standards can and do vary.

[Rab1981]

Ok

[Rascal]

I agree with Rothivale's reply with regard to soft mouthed dogs not getting a good enough grip of a bird in cover but was surprised to read about the amount of damaged birds on the shoot...Our game dealer meticulously checks birds before taking them and discards birds with rib damage, light skin damage he's not too bothered about and will still take. On two of the shoots I pick up on birds are checked by the game cart driver probably because they share the same game dealer.....
Does this happen elsewhere?

Checking birds especially if you've seen your dog "adjust" a bird on the return is normal surely....

Fizz whose nearly eleven now will sometimes do that with a runner, I hate to see it but I do always check. On two occasions this season she's given me a bird with one rib in and one had it's head still up so that's not always an indicator either. On both occasions in woodland and on difficult terrain with dense cover sweeping after the drive so I'd not marked them down or even seen them shot, I gave her the benefit of the doubt on both those occasions. I'd seen her adjust both birds one as she came out of cover and the other after she'd jumped a steep gully.

Rascal who has a mouth like velvet retrieved a cock pheasant that I had seen shot, it wasn't a particularly high bird and was hard hit, it also hit a tree hard and every branch on the way down landing with a thud on the scree below. I saw her pick it by the shoulders ( do birds have shoulders? ) her preferred way of retrieving cock pheasants, it's breast was a mess when I took it but she hadn't done that. It was also my misfortune for her to retrieve a couple of totally mullered birds on a new to me shoot last season, she hadn't done that damage either. Later I watched the offending lab muller a bird drop it and return to it's handler birdless and judging by his handling of this dog I think he'd actually caused this..

One swallow does not make a summer as they say but if any of my dogs were regularly returning with damaged birds I would know....

Rascal

[Naj]

To really understand mouth problems it's always a great help to have handled dogs with good mouths. Once you've had one of these in your kennel then they become the 'standard' that others are judged against, & it will quickly become obvious when a dog doesn't match up to that standard. As regards the example of the HPR trial, it's all relative. The European attitude to 'mouth' in some of their indigenous breeds is different to what we expect in the UK from our indigenous breeds, for a variety of reasons. If you've only ever handled dogs (a breed?) where the standard of mouth is less than, say, a UK spaniel or lab handler would consider perfect, then you would consider that to be the norm, as would your peers.

Erlandson once wrote that it is the 'intent' of the dog that matters. Seemingly mouthing the retrieve or roughly grabbing it on the trot doesn't necessarily mean that a dog is going to damage the bird - some of the softest mouthed dogs make a shambles of picking stuff up. Soft-mouthed dogs occasionally have accidents when picking difficult birds from tight spots etc., which is where using your common sense comes into play, but if you've ever had a dog that was truly hard-mouthed, believe me, you quickly run out of excuses.

Naj

[cheesefeeder]

I agree with Rothivale's reply with regard to soft mouthed dogs not getting a good enough grip of a bird in cover but was surprised to read about the amount of damaged birds on the shoot...Our game dealer meticulously checks birds before taking them and discards birds with rib damage, light skin damage he's not too bothered about and will still take. On two of the shoots I pick up on birds are checked by the game cart driver probably because they share the same game dealer.....
Does this happen elsewhere?

Checking birds especially if you've seen your dog "adjust" a bird on the return is normal surely....

Fizz whose nearly eleven now will sometimes do that with a runner, I hate to see it but I do always check. On two occasions this season she's given me a bird with one rib in and one had it's head still up so that's not always an indicator either. On both occasions in woodland and on difficult terrain with dense cover sweeping after the drive so I'd not marked them down or even seen them shot, I gave her the benefit of the doubt on both those occasions. I'd seen her adjust both birds one as she came out of cover and the other after she'd jumped a steep gully.

Rascal who has a mouth like velvet retrieved a cock pheasant that I had seen shot, it wasn't a particularly high bird and was hard hit, it also hit a tree hard and every branch on the way down landing with a thud on the scree below. I saw her pick it by the shoulders ( do birds have shoulders? ) her preferred way of retrieving cock pheasants, it's breast was a mess when I took it but she hadn't done that. It was also my misfortune for her to retrieve a couple of totally mullered birds on a new to me shoot last season, she hadn't done that damage either. Later I watched the offending lab muller a bird drop it and return to it's handler birdless and judging by his handling of this dog I think he'd actually caused this..

One swallow does not make a summer as they say but if any of my dogs were regularly returning with damaged birds I would know....

Rascal

Why, on both accounts??

[trekmoor]

I was taught to check for hard mouth by placing the bird breast uppermost in the palm of my hand and then feeling for caved in ribs.

I used to be far more "down" on hard mouth than I am now. My first ever lab bitch set my standards for all other dogs for many years. She was the best dog I have ever owned at pegging game and she could pull unshot pheasants down out of the air yet those birds still were very much alive with the ribs intact.

I have seen birds with their backsides torn to bits and birds with bad injuries to their backs caused by dogs but those things were not hard-mouth. Dogs do not have hands with which to gently extricate birds from holes in drystane dykes or among tree roots, really thick cover etc. All the dog has is a mouth full of teeth , it has to take a firm grip on such birds and just pull to extricate them. It annoys me whenever I see dogs blamed for being hard mouthed when they return with occasional birds with this sort of damage.

I have come to accept that my original lab bitch was a bit exceptional , too many of my later dogs failed to reach her standards of soft mouth.

I also think that the HPR breeds are more likely to be hard mouthed than the other retrieving breeds. Some of them get through trials because the judges look for "surface damage" and others get through trials because the only "do in" about every 5th to 10th bird they retrieve. Very few HPR's are required to retrieve enough birds in any one trial to allow the hard mouth to become a certainty............the same could however, be said of spaniel and lab trials.

I don't think most big shoots give a toss about hard mouth nowadays. The money the shoots make comes from shooting the birds not for selling them for eating. More than once I have apologised at the game cart when handing over the birds my dogs have picked while picking up. Damage had been done to the birds even if the ribs had not been crushed. All I got as a reply was a shoulder shrug and the comment .... " If it's in the cart, it is already paid for."

Wullie

[Naj]

That's the same way I learnt to check for mouth problems many years ago. I think it came from Moxon.

[Shambolic]

Glen brought me back a lovely cock bird when he was less than a year old. (it had been pricked and hiding in a pile of logs) head was up eyes wide sitting nice as you like in his mouth.
He's also brought me birds out of heavy rhododendron bushes that are burst to bits(usually on their way down through thick cover).
I have also had him on a couple of occasions stopping when bringing back birds and sit them on the ground and re adjust and pick them back up.
I'm not experienced that much on what to expect but no one on any shoots I've been on have complained yet
Will see as I'm out tomorrow and Friday on mixture of walked up mini drive days.