Monday Mischief ~Sticky Mouth

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Gambler, Gambler, Gambler is about all I can say……Yesterday we had another UKC HRC hunt test hosted by WISILL club. Gambler and I were running our second seasoned test today. It was a fair test the judges set up. Started out with a walk up, I shot at the bird, blew my whistle and Gambler sat there like a statue until I released him. Picked up the bird and came back where I took it from him. We continued up to the line where we had to start off picking up a water blind. I shot the shotgun to signal there was a blind to be run and he lined the blind across the pond with one whistle sit refusal when he got near the blind, I tried to sit him to cast him back to the blind but he “winded” in and didn’t sit and just went and grabbed the blind. It was a 32 yard blind through hopping water. Next was the double on water. He lined both marks and brought the birds back to me with no problems, on his way back with the last bird I had to shoot a diversion bird. He went and picked that up and I thought we were home free. Until the mischief began…….I told Gambler “out” to release the bird and he wouldn’t release the bird. I tried everything to get him to release, I got him up and moved him, I sat him down and tried again, I got up and moved again but he was locked tight on the bird. He wasn’t giving it to me. I finally had to manually open his mouth to get the bird out and since I did that he didn’t “deliver to hand” so we failed. What he did was what we call “sticky mouth” and it is a no no and you need to be on top of it before it gets out of hand. The only reason I would think Gambler did that was because he wanted to keep working and he is catching on that when he gets his birds he is done working and back to the truck so if he doesn’t give up the bird he thinks he is still out working, at least that is my thoughts on it.

On a much happier note and only a little mischief Glory and I passed her first started test. She has been having a issue with swimming out to long marks by not getting in or getting in swimming a few yards and coming back. She jumped in and got her short mark with no problems came back and on to birds number two which was a long mark. I lined her up, bird came out released her and she went to the side of me and was looking down the bank to see if she could get there another way, I rehealed her and send her again and she went only two feet, I then said “fetch it up” and she jumped in and swam right to the mark and brought it back. She passed by the skin on her teeth. Time to work on more water work!

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24 Replies to “Monday Mischief ~Sticky Mouth”

  1. 2browndawgs

    Congrats on Glory’s pass! Sounds like she might have had her “light bulb” moment yesterday with water marks. I hope so.

    Some of the things Gambler does sound so much like Thunder it is scary. We elected not to run HRC and AKC tests this summer hoping that his stickiness would stay under control. It seems like when he runs many tests is when it starts to pop up. Funny thing, he doesn’t do it when hunting. Maybe that has more to do with the hunters’ skills than the dog…lol.

    Next time you will do it Gambler!

    1. Sand Spring Chesapeakes

      Linda, she really did try to figure out how to get to the bird without getting wet. She loves the water so I’m still not sure what is going threw that little brain of hers. Next time with Gambler is in 2 weeks so I hope we got it figured out.

      1. 2browndawgs

        Well Storm used to do that too. She is not that keen on water if it is not right. She then figured out how to be a bank runner. That is when we sent her to a trainer and he fixed it. I point you to water, you go into water. Eventually she got over whatever it was.

        My guess is that when Glory figures out that she has to get wet to get the bird she will be on track (maybe she did last test…I hope). Gambler is such a boy…lol. Just love him!

  3. FleaByte

    Huh. Well it sounds like you’ve figured it out, which probably means you nearly have a solution as well?

  4. slimdoggy

    I think Gambler just wanted to have something for you to write about for Mischief Monday and he’s normally so good, if he didn’t have a case of sticky mouth, what would you write about? Just a guess…we could be wrong 🙂

  8. Marcie

    Sounds like you at least have the issue figured out…that’s half of it right there! Now he just needs some fun transition between ‘work time’ and ‘truck time’ to look forward to so at least the issue doesn’t pop up during ‘work time’. 🙂 How great if it were that easy, right?

  10. Misty Shores Chesapeakes

    Congratulations Glory!

    I bet Gambler will get it next time. Cheyenne went through a phase where she didn’t want to bring it back for the same reasons, she knew we would be done. Started giving her an extra bird at training and then she kind of straightened out. Funny how they figure things out 😉