Springer Pup Marking Problem

Mallard123

Hi,
I have this 8 month old springer and I'm having trouble training him to retrieve. Basically what's been happening over the last few weeks is that he's not marking the dummy well at all. He sits perfectly, he watches it perfectly or so it seems, but then when I send him for it he simply misses it and goes off on a tangent away from it. It doesn't make a lot of sense because his nose was fantastic when I brought him out shooting with my older dogs this year, where he found and rose his fair share of woodcock and pheasant(especially with pheasants where he picked up their sent outside of the cover and trailed them all the way up along a hedge). He also has fantastic drive and stamina and appears really interested in the dummy. I was delighted because he was doing this from 6 months old. Even at that time, his marking was great too although it wasn't too serious of training at that time. Now though, his marking seems to have gone downhill a lot. Fortunately, or unfortunately, my older two dogs never had this problem with training so I'm not sure how to solve it.
Has anyone seen or heard of this before? Am I being very harsh on him because he's only 8 months and will he improve his marking with age, or is this something I'm going to have to put up with.
Thanks

charlie10

would u not leave him run in straight away rather than sitting it out and maybe go to a soccer pitch where the grass is short and build his confidence that way. i would put five dummies in an area without him seeing it. then throw one for him into the area that way he will have to find one. just a thought

TriggerPL

This is a simple one your dog is bored with dummies , leave him off for a month and try him again

Jimy1971

TriggerPL wrote: »

This is a simple one your dog is bored with dummies , leave him off for a month and try him again

I agree with Trigger. Dummy retrieves should be kept to a minimum with a young dog. Try her with frozen game