<P>No offense Orion, but I now have two dogs in my kennel that have been FF and now have issues that is a direct result of force fetching the wrong personality. One will take your hand off if you go near his mouth and the other is now afraid to let anyone go near him and is actually afraid of anything other than a tennis ball. The serous biter now allows me to handle him physically and sits, stays, heels, steady under the gun and retrieves to hand without fail. Shot three live flyers out of the duck blind Sat. over him. Steady, made all retrieves directly to hand (left side in sit positon) and followed up with a blind retrieve 110 yds across my pond to the adjoining field. It took two months to rebuild his confidence and to enforce the holding issue with another technique. This dog would have been a good all around hunting machine if his soft personality would have been evaluated before he was FF. To this day, if someone corners him and makes the mistake of reaching out to pet him, he will fearfully bite the person. A well known pro in NC followed the normal FF training procedure followed by the training process. This same trainer was just written up in a national publication for placing dogs in several major competitions this year. He is a great trainer, but, as I said before, the average person does not see the number of dogs that do not make the traditional training methods that are published or passed on to the retriever community. I have never had an issue with a dog refusing a retrieve because he was not FF. There is another underlying reason for that happening that is in direct response to a past experience, lack of the training process not developing the correct amount of desire or in some cases the FF scenario itself. FF for the right dog works every time. FF does not make but can break a retriever. Since I have been dealing more with the companion hunting dog and got away from the trials and recently cutting back on hunt tests, I am seeing more of these soft personality dogs which can do the job and make excellent companion and family members. I hope I am not ruffling feathers here, but I get into this debate way too much. It is just one more thing that I do different than most pros. As a young man, I hated to hear the trainer I was working with tell the client his dog was not going to reach the goals or performance level needed. For the companion hunting dog owner, that is the last thing he wants to hear. For competiton, then the attitude has to be different. The time and money involved dictates that you have to be dealing with the animal that can take the stress involved in reaching those levels in a timely fashion. I love the challenge of taking any retriever and making him what that average bird hunting guy/girl wants and needs from their companion hunting partner. Starting this year, in 2006, I will be putting all my efforts in specializing in that companion hunting dog. I will not be running hunt test, but will continue to prepare dogs for handlers interested in running their own tests or trials. I have another activity planned for the companion hunting dog owner that will be a fun, competitive situation for non pro handlers and intitled dogs. I will follow up with details regarding rules, prizes and possible locations. Jim</P>