I am getting a new pup here in a couple of weeks and want to start his training. The pup will only be 7 weeks old. I have read of different ways of introducing birds to dogs ranging from locking the wings to letting them search and flush them. The concepts I get. I don't want to scare the pup with flapping wings, but I don't want the possibility of him catching a bird that is wing locked. What should I do? Am I overthinking this? Would like to hear what some of you have experienced while training your own pups.



This is Sam.

Try putting the bird in a real small see thru crate. So the dog can see it smell it, and crawl over the crate.

You're in KS should be plenty of wild phez and quail to get the pup on. No better way to introduce or train than with the real thing in natural settings.

Drive the roads in the early am hours. The hens will have poults on the roads dusty and gritting....pile out with your pooch and there you go.

Well, I’ve been introducing my 4 month old PL pup to quail the past few weeks. I am by no means an expert (and all you experts feel free to weigh in) this is my second PL. I don’t have large populations of wild quail in FL so I have to use mostly planted birds.

The birds I have now are terrible and I know my dog will catch them if I’m not careful, so I’ve been working her on a check cord. I’ve only done 4 training sessions with her but she’s been doing great and locked up at her first scent of quail. I have found a dog training club near by that I’ll be joining next week, with much better birds that she won’t catch as easy.

Here is a video of Claire’s 2nd quail http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Vug4Cihpks

and her 4th quail a few days ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62f2h4BldUw

Posted By ericedw on 29 Jul 2010 06:50 AM
Well, I’ve been introducing my 4 month old PL pup to quail the past few weeks. I am by no means an expert (and all you experts feel free to weigh in) this is my second PL. I don’t have large populations of wild quail in FL so I have to use mostly planted birds.

The birds I have now are terrible and I know my dog will catch them if I’m not careful, so I’ve been working her on a check cord. I’ve only done 4 training sessions with her but she’s been doing great and locked up at her first scent of quail. I have found a dog training club near by that I’ll be joining next week, with much better birds that she won’t catch as easy.

Here is a video of Claire’s 2nd quail http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Vug4Cihpks

and her 4th quail a few days ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62f2h4BldUw

I only watched the second clip.

A few comments on what I saw:

The pup is rather young to be attempting to steady her. Will you be able to work her on wild quail at all this coming hunting season??? If so, my suggestion would be to do so well into the season or even through it before steadying her.

Your check cord is WAY too long and you are way too concerned with the part that makes no difference to your interaction with the pup - the part not between you and the pup. Let the rest drag on the ground behind you, forget about it - concentrate on the pup. If it gets tangled in brush etc, cut it off to no longer than 15 feet.

When the pup points the bird, quickly move up, shorten the CC until no more than a few feet are between your hand and the pup's collar and have your helper (I heard a voice) QUICKLY (at first) move around ahead of pup and come in from in front and off to one side (say 45 degrees) to flush the bird. Do not make the beginner pup stand holding point for a long time. That comes later.

When pup breaks to flush bird stop it quickly by holding hand off to side and letting pup come to end of the rope, be stopped by the rope in a spinning manner. Then get to pup VERY quickly, make it stand, do not let it spin and dance around on the end of the rope.

After pup stands for a few seconds, lead it away in a direction more or less opposite the direction the bird flew off in.

You're done for the day, or have another bird to work.

I've posted links to pretty detailed descriptions of this process elsewhere. There are copies in the Files section of the yahoo groups at http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Pointing_Labradors/Pointing_Labradors and http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/pointingdogs/

Pup looks to have some promise. Don't take it out of her...

Do you have "wild" barn pigeons in the area you might be able to catch and use for training purposes? they won't be caught by the pup if you use them right.

Where are you in Florida - oh, I see - Central Fl. If you'd be interested in traveling all the way to Greenville SC vicinity I can probably put you in contact with a Master at this who loves to help folks learn to gently steady their dogs and has worked with this on many Labs.

Jere

Jere, I appreciate all the input and advice.

>>I only watched the second clip. A few comments on what I saw: The pup is rather young to be attempting to steady her.

Not real sure what you mean here, I didn't think I was trying to steady her, I wasn't giving any commands or restraining her at all. My goal was really just to see if she would find the bird, point the bird and then keep her from catching the bird.

>>Will you be able to work her on wild quail at all this coming hunting season??? If so, my suggestion would be to do so well into the season or even through it before steadying her.

I'll be able to put her on some quail but a lot of my hunting is snipe. I hunt them 5 days a week all season long. And I do run across a few covies of quail.

>>I've posted links to pretty detailed descriptions of this process elsewhere. There are copies in the Files section of the yahoo groups at http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Pointing_Labradors/Pointing_Labradors and http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/pointingdogs/

I joined both groups and I'll take a look at these files, thanks.

>>Do you have "wild" barn pigeons in the area you might be able to catch and use for training purposes? they won't be caught by the pup if you use them right.

I can trap plenty of pigeons and I have a loft of homers so I'll give some pigeons a try and see if that works better. I also found a dog training club that has lots of good birds I can work her on. I'll start working her there in a few weeks.

Thanks again for the input,

Eric

I had planned on training with pigeons I will trap. I have heard alot about "barn pigeons", but unfortunately I live smack dab in the middle of Kansas City. This however does give me access to 10's of thousand of "city pigeons". Would they work? I worry about them being safe.

Posted By robbie4x4 on 31 Jul 2010 10:04 AM
I had planned on training with pigeons I will trap. I have heard alot about "barn pigeons", but unfortunately I live smack dab in the middle of Kansas City. This however does give me access to 10's of thousand of "city pigeons". Would they work? I worry about them being safe.

Unless obviously sick they are about as safe as domestic ones. I never worry about it. But, don't keep them in conditions which allow for a lot of dust from the litter on the floor of the loft and wear a dust mask when cleaning the quarters. I make my cages with a 1" square mesh welded wire floor so the poop does not accumulate. Don't lick you fingers.

They will work as well as "barn pigeons" but first generation birds will not usually "home" and if you raise young they will need to mature before using them for anything but retrieving. Young will need plenty of free flying exercise before they are strong enough to use steadying the dog. Personally, I love to watch them fly!

Jere

Posted By ericedw on 31 Jul 2010 07:46 AM
Jere, I appreciate all the input and advice.

>>I only watched the second clip. A few comments on what I saw: The pup is rather young to be attempting to steady her.

Not real sure what you mean here, I didn't think I was trying to steady her, I wasn't giving any commands or restraining her at all. My goal was really just to see if she would find the bird, point the bird and then keep her from catching the bird.

>>Will you be able to work her on wild quail at all this coming hunting season??? If so, my suggestion would be to do so well into the season or even through it before steadying her.

I'll be able to put her on some quail but a lot of my hunting is snipe. I hunt them 5 days a week all season long. And I do run across a few covies of quail.

>>I've posted links to pretty detailed descriptions of this process elsewhere. There are copies in the Files section of the yahoo groups at http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Pointing_Labradors/Pointing_Labradors and http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/pointingdogs/

I joined both groups and I'll take a look at these files, thanks.

>>Do you have "wild" barn pigeons in the area you might be able to catch and use for training purposes? they won't be caught by the pup if you use them right.

I can trap plenty of pigeons and I have a loft of homers so I'll give some pigeons a try and see if that works better. I also found a dog training club that has lots of good birds I can work her on. I'll start working her there in a few weeks.

Thanks again for the input,

Eric

I prefer to let the dog hunt and find birds that can get away from it before doing any CC work. I appreciate and understand your concern for the pup catching birds and you did well at that. (with the comments I made concerning cc handling taken into account). And you did well not to say anything to her and not restrain her before she pointed. (Good practice for the dog's whole life, IMO) You did restrain her after she busted the bird - which you probably felt was necessary to prevent capture and may well have been. I suspect, if you do that too many times at this stage of her life she will start to lose interest in those birds. What you were doing, though is not very different from what you might do were you actually beginning to steady her - I wouldn't do much more without that being the plan. You did achieve what you set out to do, and reasonably well. I liked what I saw of her.

Snipe (are those 'common snipe' or soras?) should be fun - if she likes them as well as quail. That might take some introduction. Neither of my dogs ever developed a relationship with snipe. Substitute "snipe" everywhere I used "wild quail." I'd run her on them off lead until she was doing a decent job of hunting and finding them and was pointing reasonably well before I worried about steadying her. With five days a week work it shouldn't take long.

Sounds like you're well equipped and on the way to making a wonderful hunting companion of her.

Jere

Here is what i do with 9 week old pups (today), I use a fishing pole and heavy fishing line hook it to a chukars leg go get the pup and say hunt em up.












Then a few retrieves.







There is nothing funner than the building of a bird dog!!

Posted By ericedw on 31 Jul 2010 07:46 AM

I joined both groups and I'll take a look at these files, thanks.

The latest incarnation of my effort is on both sites. There's quite a bit of other stuff on the pointingdogs site. Some very good folks there, very willing to help and good discussion regularly and in past posts.

Hope you find it useful

I noted your screen name on Pointing_Labradors ... do you fly birds of prey over your dogs?

Jere

Posted By Jere on 31 Jul 2010 08:27 PM
I noted your screen name on Pointing_Labradors ... do you fly birds of prey over your dogs?

Jere

Yes, I do. I've been a falconer for about 20 years and most of that time has been spent flying peregrine falcons on various game birds. For quite a few years I've hunted mostly snipe with peregrines but I also hunt some doves, quail and ducks. If interested, my wife took some great video of snipe hunts last year, there are several on my youtube page but here's one of them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMSls5Htsfk Eric www.ericedw.com

Posted By robbie4x4 on 28 Jul 2010 03:49 PM
I am getting a new pup here in a couple of weeks and want to start his training. The pup will only be 7 weeks old. I have read of different ways of introducing birds to dogs ranging from locking the wings to letting them search and flush them. The concepts I get. I don't want to scare the pup with flapping wings, but I don't want the possibility of him catching a bird that is wing locked. What should I do? Am I overthinking this? Would like to hear what some of you have experienced while training your own pups.

We talked about this a little in this thread: http://www.americanpointinglab.com/site/Forum/tabid/68/aff/2/aft/20518/afv/topic/Default.aspx Unfortunately, it appears the "global" search on this site is now essentially non-functional. Gotta search each forum

Posted By ericedw on 01 Aug 2010 07:26 PM
Yes, I do. I've been a falconer for about 20 years and most of that time has been spent flying peregrine falcons on various game birds. For quite a few years I've hunted mostly snipe with peregrines but I also hunt some doves, quail and ducks. If interested, my wife took some great video of snipe hunts last year, there are several on my youtube page but here's one of them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMSls5Htsfk Eric www.ericedw.com

That's neat, Eric.

I've never had a bird though I had "dreams" growing up in the country in New England, I was never able to get my hands on one.

We have merlins nesting near here and occassionally see peregrines and even gyrs (in the winter). A pair of gyrs took up residence one winter and cleaned out all the feral quail and chukars folks here had released.

A few falls ago I met a young man in interior Alaska who was training his young peregrine and before that a fellow on the Denali Highway who had a goshawk. (It rained all day and we talked and talked - dogs, birds... .) I never got to see the goshawk fly and it died that winter when a rabbit it was after went under a car and the bird tried to go through the car's windows. It was a very sad falconer when I talked with him.

One of the big thrills of my outdoor experiences was seeing a peregrine take a widgeon from the sky just a few yards away as I and a couple of friends watched. The bird came down at blinding speed, hit the duck in a cloud of feathers and followed it to the ground. We used to hunt ptarmigan on the Alaska Peninsula each fall and it was fun to watch the ptarmigan we flushed dive into the alders to escape the birds of prey that followed us and the dogs. The life of a bop is not all that easy! Hunting birds with a dog and a bird has to be real stuff.

There are a couple of folks on the pointingdogs group that fly birds.

Watched your first pup video and shared those links with Mo. Sending an email by and by.

Jere

My understanding is the goshawk is know as the falconers "shot gun". Able to capture a phez or quail, when flushed, after release from the falconers arm. No need to circle above and dive....pretty cool

I sold two started pointers several years ago to a couple of falconers. Always wanted a chance to get out with them, it just never developed. Though I did hunt grouse with shot guns with one of the fellows and Twist a pup I had for a year and half...should of kept her and sold her sister.

Goshawks carry the nickname "cook's hawk" because they are very efficient at putting game in the bag and they hunt quite a variety from rabbits and squirrels to ducks, phez, and quail. And yes, they can fly down a bird from the fist with blinding speed.

But, there's not much cooler than a stooping peregrine. The peregrine will leave the glove and circle up to 1,000' and wait for birds to flush (I've had birds wait up to 45 min overhead while working a field), when the bird flushes a peregrine goes into a stoop with a top speed of about 250mph, they strike the prey in mid air, often killing it dead with one blow.

But, it's all very cool to watch.

Eric,

The fellows I sold the pointers to said the falcons will learn to circle above the dogs, waiting for the opportunity to dive. I toyed with the idea of getting into falconing, but already had too much going on and passed. It still intrigues me and hopefully will get a chance to participate one day.

 

The falconers "shot gun" term came from "The Hunters Encyclopedia" a book I bought in the mid 60's. I still go to it for reference on different topics. It's and oversized book with tons of good, though maybe dated, information on pretty much anything related to hunting. There's a decent section on falconry.

 

One time while in KS phez hunting. I watched a BOP dive in a wheat field about a half mile away. I suspected a phez and steered my pointer in that direction.  She locked up way before I got there and when I did, I was in for a treat. I spotted the BOP standing on top of a rooster. We both stared at each other for a minute or so, before I flushed the BOP. The phez went a few seconds later, followed by a second rooster maybe 10ft away. I managed to drop both of them....A day and outing that I'll always cherish and remember. I'll have to check out your youtube...hats off dude!