DF Mallard Bird Dummy | Head, Wings, Feet & Tail | 600g | Wildfowl Retrieve Training

Every other bird in this range lands on the ground.

The mallard doesn't. It comes down on water - a flooded marsh, a gravel pit, a river bend - and it comes with something no upland bird has. Feet. Webbed, trailing, hanging as the dog tries to find its grip and carry a wet, 600g bird back through cold water and up a bank without dropping it once.

Most gundogs are introduced to waterfowl for the first time on a shoot day. No preparation. No prior experience of what a duck feels like in the mouth. Just a bird down on the far bank and a handler waiting.

That gap is what this dummy is for.

The Mallard Bird Dummy. Full body, 600g, with head, wings, feet and tail. The only dummy in this range that includes feet - because the mallard is the only bird where they're part of the retrieve. Ultra-HD drake mallard feather-print canvas on real-feel, scent-retaining fabric. Long throw toggle and ball grip. Life-size and shaped like the real thing, with every appendage that makes the mallard retrieve different to everything else a dog has trained on.

The feet change everything

Wings, head and tail - every dead bird dummy in the range has those. The mallard adds feet. They hang. They trail. They catch as the dog tries to settle into the carry. Add wet, cold, heavy feathers from a water entry and you've got a retrieve that asks more of a dog's mouth placement and carry discipline than almost anything else it'll do in a season.

Work through that here - in training, on this dummy - before the first wildfowling morning. A dog that's already sorted its grip around the feet and the wings doesn't fumble on the retrieve that matters. It just gets on with it.

Wildfowl is different

Driven pheasant and walked-up grouse are one discipline. Wildfowling is another. The cover is different - reeds, mud, flood water, steep banks. The retrieve is often longer. The dog may be entering cold water more than once in a session. And the bird it's retrieving - the mallard especially - is built differently to anything in the upland game bag. Broader body. Wider wings. Those feet.

If your dog works wildfowl, or you're planning to introduce it to duck shooting, this is where the preparation starts. Not on the foreshore in November. Here.

Scent in the right environment

The scent-retaining fabric works exactly as it does across the range - clip it to your game bag on a duck flight, keep it where mallard have been, work it into every subsequent session. For waterfowl specifically, adding water to the dummy during training sessions extends that preparation further. The dog encounters the weight change of wet fabric, the different carry feel, the smell - before the real thing. Nothing about the retrieve on the day is unfamiliar.

600g and the range

At 600g, the mallard sits alongside the cock pheasant as the heaviest of the upland and waterfowl dead bird dummies - above the grouse, partridge and wood pigeon at 550g, and well above the teal at 250g. The only heavier dummy in the range is the goose at 1.5kg - which is the serious wildfowl end. The mallard sits between the two: a full-sized duck retrieve, manageable weight, maximum complexity.

The details:

• Bird: Mallard drake - full body with head, wings, feet and tail
• Weight: 600g
• Print: Ultra-HD photographic drake mallard feather-pattern canvas
• Material: Real-feel, scent-retaining fabric
• Toggle: Long throw toggle and ball grip included
• Use: Wildfowl retrieve preparation, water entry training, feet and wing distraction work, mouth placement, scent association
• Suitable for: All breeds working wildfowl - Labradors, Spaniels, HPR breeds, any dog introduced to duck shooting
• Price: £25.00

Stocked at Kirkbourne because the first duck retrieve shouldn't be the first time a dog has dealt with feet, wet wings and a body that doesn't carry like anything else in the bag. Sort it in training. This is the one to do it on.