Am I the only one? How do you introduce hunt dead? Here?

Good point, I used a hot dog to train a plot hound I had at the time to blood trail.

while walking a field with the dog out ahead of me working a search. I throw a dead bird on the ground and fire a shot when the dog isn't looking. The shot gets the dog's attention and then I call him/her over to me and command dead bird. Lots of praise when the dog finds and retrieves the bird. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Treats are a great way to teach them to hunt dead around the house, then like TDH09 said for real life training.

I started with a bumper in a little thicker vegetation. Just started out with doing marked retrieves, them slightly more difficult... once she started searching on her own I added the 'find it' command when she got close. Repeated to make it a little tougher each time.

Hotdogs... I read somewhere they are really good to use to teach your dog to dive under the water. My dog naturally tended to dive for branches on the bottom of the pond to play so much so that her whole body would submerge. So I figured maybe if I can re-inforce it, that's what I started this weekend and I got her reaching down to the 2nd step in the pool with her head completely under water going after the hot dog. Will it translate to diving after cripples who knows, but fun 'training'

I like hot dogs with any new training activity.

Kosher?