by Maureen Cooper » Mon 23 May 2005 6:48 pm
Hi Matt
Had the same problem myself many years ago with a dog who liked to 'teach his birds to swim' as I used to say! I just did a lot of water work over short distances and a lot of praise and use of the word 'hold' as soon as I saw the mouth moving. Use a river bank or dam where you can walk into it so if you are some distance away from the water, as you will be eventually, you can walk forward into the water if necessary. Training is training, you are not glued to a firing peg as in a trial. You do not say how old your dog is but I think mine also grew out of the habit too,... grew out, trained out? Who knows but he stopped! Some young dogs dont know how to breathe properly via their noses and hold a bird, so they have the bird and ingest water via their mouth but eventually they learn the right way too.
Regards
Maureen