I think that is a great idea, all dogs should get to come here sometime.
I thought Lola was going to be a washout also. I could not for the life of me figure out why some birds were retrieved, and some were not, despite being found. Finally one cold winter day, I was working some cattails along the lake at PNF, along with Lola. Flash had been put up for the day. The lake of course was frozen and instead of grassing birds, I iced them. They hit the ice. One was dead as a wedge. She nosed it over, to check for signs of life as I later figured out, and grabbed it and brought it right over. The second was flapping as dead birds often do before they learn of their own demise. And that bird, well she had little interest in picking it up. For understandable reasons. Until the birds hit ice I was never really able to see what was going on.
It took her a longer time to figure it out in her own mind. Is she a great dog in the field? No I wouldn't say. Certainly not yet anyway. She's a good dog who makes few mistakes. She does make steady progress however. And she's had some great successes. I'm sure a better trainer would be welcome as well, but we're stuck together.
