2Blackdogs!
Kansas City Area - GO CHIEFS !!!
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| 01/25/2007 9:05 PM |
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Well for one-When the heavy cover is cattails in messy muddy yucky up to your A$ in places areas swamps it is nice if you do not have to go in to flush the bird.
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KwickLabs
Roscoe, IL
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| 01/25/2007 10:06 PM |
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Well, the nice thing about training is that when you don't want to flush the bird your dog has pointed.......you can have the dog do it. 
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Jim Boyer www.kwicklabs.com
Home of: MPR UH HRCH Kwick Taffey of Joemac's MH
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2Blackdogs!
Kansas City Area - GO CHIEFS !!!
Grand Master
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| 01/25/2007 10:22 PM |
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| I hear ya Jim- All I accomplished by trying to get him to flush was turn a dog with a solid, staunch point into a flagger that crowds the birds too. things still work out real good most of the time...;) |
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KwickLabs
Roscoe, IL
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| 01/26/2007 8:51 AM |
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| I would not do this with a young dog. |
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Jim Boyer www.kwicklabs.com
Home of: MPR UH HRCH Kwick Taffey of Joemac's MH
Kwick Kooly Dew It Allstar SH
Kwick Daisy's Spirit Keeper SH
Kwick Draw McGraw ("Dustbucket" II)
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Jakebrake
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| 01/26/2007 10:21 AM |
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| You cant see a dog on point in heavy cover. Running birds make it tough on a pointing dog, if youre not prepared to deal with the issues this might cuase in term of staunchness, it can be frustrating for an amatuer trainer to deal with. I have found a hard flush to be much more effective on wild roosters in cover. Pointers excell in wide open spaces where thier abiity to cover more ground is an attribute. |
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Liv2Hnt
Overland Park, KS
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| 01/26/2007 5:21 PM |
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Jakebrake,
I agree. I hunt mostly ducks and wild pheasants/quail. My last pointing lab I let flush the birds with an ok release command. I didnt start this until I knew that he fully understood hold point and whoa. It wasnt much of an issue as he held a staunch point from an early age. As time went on I learned to read his body language and could tell when a bird was running on him and I would give the ok in for the flush. The pup hasnt been catching the pen birds I have been training him on, but they have held very close which may be why he is diving in on them. Im taking him out on some pen quail tomorrow and I am going to try to plant them without dizzying or pushing them in the grass to see if they will flush a little more wild and see what kind of response I get. I used the flank rope on him today and by the fourth bird, I think he was catching on. Has anyone tried the utilization of the whoa bird in conjunction with releasing a bird on the ground in front of the dog and enforcing the whoa as a method? |
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OD
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| 01/27/2007 1:45 AM |
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I do things a little different as well. I let the birds educate the dogs about chasing intially. I have yet to see a dog catch a healthy pigeon launched from a remote. You will see a dramatic change in attitude in a relatively low number of contacts with birds. I let the dog run all they want. First it may be 200 yards, next bird 200 feet, the next 20 feet. Now they have started to make the connection. I dont say a word to them until they come back and then I heel them off and move onto the next bird. Release them to hunt again. Pigeons tend to fly in circles or do fly by around you for a while. Perfect for the ambitous youngsters or hard headed adult.
At this point they are receptive and ready to make the connection of whoaing on birds in the field. They are already familiar with whoaing on birds from the yardwork. For the most part pretty seemless transition.
I rarely use the collar for whoaing or for that matter around birds at all. Fortunately I have learned a few things from the past?
One more comment. Keep an open mind as well as ears. You can learn a lot from the traditional pointing dog trainers that are good at what they do. I hang out with some of them through a local club. It is easy to get tunnel vision if you cant step outside the box. Take the best tools you can find and apply them to met your needs.
Gary |
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staunch
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| 01/29/2007 11:53 AM |
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Posted By OD on 01/27/2007 1:45 AM
One more comment. Keep an open mind as well as ears. You can learn a lot from the traditional pointing dog trainers that are good at what they do. I hang out with some of them through a local club. It is easy to get tunnel vision if you cant step outside the box. Take the best tools you can find and apply them to met your needs.
Gary
Well said Gary, as we all know there are many ways to skin a Rooster.
I personally have enjoy this discussion and the many methods to accomplish the same thing. I am glad you all have participated and explained the different view points. WITHOUT arguing about it... Keep the board great.
PS. Its good to see the "old timers" to Pointing lab world posting again.. Keep posting OD |
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Liv2Hnt
Overland Park, KS
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| 02/11/2007 7:28 AM |
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| Thanks for all the input. I've been working a couple of methods. Using the pointer method with the whoa board and releasinga bird in front of him. He would immediately staunch up and my brother would flush and shoot the bird. He would then be released to flush. We worked this drilll three days in a row on three birds and then went to the field for three singles. This seem to have helped steady him to flush and his point has probably tripled in duration. 30-45 secs is still all Im getting, but increasing the number of bird contacts over the last couple of weeks seems to be making a difference. As I mentioned he is quite young and went through ff just a couple of months ago, so I dont want to totally dechase at this point since Im still encouraging the fetch behavior. We were out on birds yesterday and I was really excited at his holding point. I did get a couple of dechase scenarios in since I was hunting by myself, encouraging the who and the bird flushed. Needless to say a couple of misses allowed us to work the dechase scenario even though it wasnt on the training agenda for the day. Thanks again for all of your input. Just wanted to give an update. I plan on working dechase in the summer and hopefully the rest of Julie's book will be available to help work me through it. Also to put in a plug for any of the young pl owners out there. I've used the regimen and walk of Julie's first section of her new book and cant believe what an 8 month old lab is doing with the foundation of ob and the walk outlined in the book and her first book. If you dont always have these Id pick them up. Take Care |
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bwf7917
SAMS CREEK KENNELS
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| 02/11/2007 9:22 PM |
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| YOU REFERENCE TWO BOOKS? I THOUGHT THERE IS ONLY ONE?? |
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WHERE THE "POINT" COUNTS |
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2Blackdogs!
Kansas City Area - GO CHIEFS !!!
Grand Master
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| 02/11/2007 9:34 PM |
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| BW- One book has been out for a very long time. A new book is due to be released very very soon. The 1st section of it that deals with the young pup is available on line as a download that you can print out for yourself. |
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Jay
Topeka, KS Go GORILLAS!!
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| 02/12/2007 6:40 AM |
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If you've got the birds, tie one or two of them on a string, which is also tied to a long stick or piece of pipe. This will allow you to put the birds in front of the dog, and pull them up into the air if the dog breaks. Work whoa with the dog with the birds in front, and keep extending the time, and decreasing the distance. Get them to walk around and act like you flushing them. Any move, and put the dog back into place. In other words, train the dog how to handle the excitement in the yard, so that they will have an easier time in the field.
Good going on the progress!
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Jere
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| 02/12/2007 2:19 PM |
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Posted By Liv2Hnt on 02/11/2007 7:28 AM
...
Using the pointer method with the whoa board and releasinga bird in front of him. He would immediately staunch up and my brother would flush and shoot the bird. He would then be released to flush. ...
Did you mean 'retrieve' rather than 'flush' (last word quoted above)?
This "staunch[ing] up" you observe sounds more like a sight point at best, more likely the body language of high drive dog displayed in anticipation of getting feathers in mouth rather than an innate point.
I know some pointer folks work their dogs in this and similar ways. One has to remember that those dogs have a very strong and intense innate point and (some) have a very weak or even non-existent chase and/or desire to get bird in mouth (BIM) - its just a fact of the way US pointer breeding has gone over the past fifty years to century which has placed a strong emphasis on the run aspect of search. You need to know also that many of those dogs have essentially run wild on wild birds for a year or so and their 'point' has been exhibited as strong. The combination of strong innate point and weak chase/BIM makes them ideal candidates for this sort of steadiness training. Few, if any, PLs have this combination of innate behaviors - in fact we don't want them to have very weak chase/BIM. IMO this makes them poor candidates for this training protocol.
Further, again my opinion, it is generally a mistake (in the sense that the time taken to complete the process will be lengthened) to allow chase after the steadying process has begun - especially if it is followed by 'catch.' This would constitute a random schedule of positive reinforcement (unless the fun of the chase is countered by some level of unpleasantness) of an undesired behavior and such conditioning protocols (random reinforcement schedules) tend to be VERY effective and the results lasting. The one exception I can immediately think of is the case of the dog that has, for whatever reason, lost interest in birds and needs that interest restored. Then chase and catch are to be encouraged, catch and eat is even OK.
I once proposed that I could take a well bred EP and run it through one of the popular and widely advertised pointing dog training programs (where 'whoa' is stressed, first trained as a stand alone response, then layered to the sight of nearby birds, smell of nearby birds and sound of nearby birds running in leaves, finally layered to the detection of the smell of a hidden bird) but replace the verbal "whoa" command to stand with a verbal (or whistle) command to sit and thereby produce a dog that "sat birds" rather than pointing (standing upright). This was proposed as a test of whether the advertised process produced a 'pointing' dog or one 'standing game.' I never tried it and admit that the very strong innate point of such dogs could be rather difficult to overcome. I have no doubt of the outcome of such a process (the sitting birds one) with any of the PLs I've heard about. I was encouraged, however, when told of a man who claims to have taken a young Elhew English Pointer and by working with encouragement and clip winged pigeons for about two weeks removed all evidence of pointing and had the dog flushing like a spaniel.
Jere |
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