Your first few bird hunts of the season are a memory, and not all good.

Your dog’s performance was, well, less than stellar. Maybe it’s time to go back to school with a new training tool: Scott Linden’s Real Bird Bumper.

The first – and only – retrieving dummy that weighs the same as a pheasant, is soft and floppy like a shot bird and the same size as a rooster to encourage “whole body grabs.”

It has an articulated wing to familiarize dogs with the challenges of navigation while “blindfolded.” Just as important, there are no hard plastic parts to poke a dog’s eye or encourage grabbing a bird by the head, no rigid foam to encourage hard mouth, and it floats.That’s why pro trainers George Hickox and Ronnie Smith endorse it.