Jgunn

Thank you both for the advice. The easiest other birds I can use are pigeons but I know you shouldn't use these due to their loose plumage but I could put them inside socks or stockings. The only reason I tried moving onto cold game this early is to get him used to picking up different things so I will try with a variety of objects. But as you said the last thing I want to be doing is pressuring him.

I am 17 and attempting to train my first dog to the gun. He's a 7 and a half month old black labrador and training is going fine so I thought I'd move on to getting him to retrieve real game. I starts off by taping dried pheasant wings and tail feathers to dummies which were absolutely fine so I moved on to a hen pheasant. He was more interested in smelling it when sent to retrieve it. He did attempt to pick it up and carried it just over a metre but then dropped it and lost interest. I'm stumped as to where to go from here. Do I keep persisting with the pheasant or leave it a while? Or maybe