We were over at a friend's house - he has a three year old son who just started in his first T-Ball league. So he's out in the yard practicing his throws at one of those net things. He misses the net, and down goes the baseball about 30 feet into a tangle of honeysuckle, ivy, and briars. His daddy (who's standing barefoot on the lawn) starts to wade into the tangle, and I said, "Wait a minute."
I put the Shelley dog in heel and unsnapped her leash, put out my hand and said, "There's a dead bird in there, girl. Dead Bird. BACK!" She took off into the honeysuckle on a dead run. She went a little left, I whistled between my fingers, she turned and sat, I gave her a right "over" and she ran right over the baseball. She looked at me like, "That ain't a duck OR a bumper!" and I said, "Take It!" and she picked it up, ran to me, flipped into "heel", sat, and delivered to hand.
Everybody's mouth was hanging open. My mouth was hanging open too because she's just started blinds, but I shut it quick and acted like she did this every day . . . < g >
Can I hire you to train my dog?
She was an awesome, trained bird dog, a beautiful tri-colored English setter, before I turned her into a 60-pound poodle (lap dog).
LOL!
My first show golden had a WC and a JH leg. I was a miserable field trainer, but she was force fetched (had to do it for obedience, she would retrieve real birds, but wood dumbells didn't interest her in the least). One day, I needed a roll of TP (not going to go into any more detail there!) It was across the room. Believe it or not, I told her to fetch it, and she did. :) However, your dog sounds much further along than she ever got! (we had 2 CDX legs when she started having vision problems and I retired her).
susie