Good boy ... now "leave it" for later on the retrieve. Much later.
Manny backslid on the one part of retrieving on which we weren’t solid: a real bird, brought to hand without um, “tenderizing.” Yesterday, his retrieves were energetic and enthusiastic. Using my Real Bird Bumper, he was scooping, making a U-turn, and racing back. When a pigeon was substituted, the wheels came off.
Thankfully, I figured out why, in record time.
Immediately before, we’d been working on steadiness, close-in birds flapping and flying in front of a dog that had been too long in the kennel while was in New York making shows. The adrenaline was gushing in torrents in Manny’s little doggy body. When the retrieving practice commenced a couple minutes later, and CRUNCH.
It only took one night to sleep on it before it hit me (at about 4:30 a.m. to be exact): Divorce flushing, flying live birds from retrieving … completely … for a while. Most of us have had a corollary drummed into our thick skulls for years: training a dog to expect a retrieve upon every flush (or shot, for that matter) is verboten. The worse you shoot (like me), the deeper you sink into that mire. Manny is showing me that the less mature a dog, the farther apart flushes and retrieves should be, literally. So for now, we will put time – and distance – between the two skills.
Today, it worked. I’m still playing it safe, leaving my pigeons in the loft after they clock out on their flushing job. Our retrieving work will be limited to Real Bird Bumpers with chukar wings taped on. Not real, but real enough.
Scott Linden Outdoors 
There are many things to consider when training. Each dog should be evaluated as to thier skill level and should fit the dogs stage of training. I do not believe in a “cookie cutter” approach. Break down the steps to training so that you concentrate on each part of the excercise. Master each step and then put it all together. Make sure you control the training excercise so there are no surprises. Be consistent and make sure you reward the desired behavior. Positve reinforcement produces engrained behavior that is very resistant to the behavior fading. Transition the learned behavior so that the bird becomes the end reward and after all there is nothing more rewarding than the bird.
Lucy Sky Cloud
We just lived through the same situation with my son’s young shorthair. She is now putting together the whole scenario – finding, pointing with steadiness, followed by the retrieve. I pushed a little too hard into this, and we had to back up, also. We plan on being as consistent as possible through the summer. We are already excited about this upcoming Fall season for her. My youngest male shorthair had the “lights come on” over the past couple of months. He has made the transition from enthusiastic puppy to serious hunter. It is so great to see this.