1yo GSP with death gril

I’ve got a 1 year old male GSP that wasn’t originally going to be a bird dog, but about 8 months in decided to get into it for the first time. As a result, he has chewed on plushy toys, squeakers, and played tug for most of his life.

Today he got to retrieve a winged pigeon for the first time and nearly bit it in half. He had a super hard grip.

I’m planning to work on it by doing hold drills using hard objects (which he holds onto almost too softly). My question is do I need to take other toys away? He chews on dog toys a lot and destroys them, but I’m worried that if we took them away he’d make his own toys out of our clothes and furniture.

Or can I just work from dowels up to live pigeons with force fetch, teaching him to differentiate between play and work?

Posted Oct 11, 2025, 7:33 PM UTC

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