Hunting Dog
- Thread starter lmckin1800
- Start date
travis bruce
Active member
Mustad, no worry bout me thinking your trying to start something... Its a discussion, and part of that is all sharing our expereinces. I don't think you've understood my concearn yet about early upland hunting. From your description of your dogs first season, sounds like ya'll are having a ball and thats the whole point of owning a dog to begin with. Good for ya'll. My point about upland hunting before other training is solid wouldn't be apparent, on a dog that isn't running blind retreives or long distance marked retreives through cover changes. And Id guess from your reply, you aren't doing either of those yet. You might not have any intention of ever doing those things, in which case my concearns wouldnt concearn you. But most people intend for their dogs to eventually run blinds and handle, even if most of those people get side tracked and never put the time in to teach their dogs too. Thats all I was saying, if its someones intention to do that, I find they'll be happier running blinds first before you ever let a dog upland hunt. In fact, on young dogs, I don't send them on a blind on a duck hunt, unless I know where the bird is for sure... cuase I dont want the random hunting sneaking into their other work. By their second season, they understand the difference between the scent of the duck they are sent after, and the scent where a duck roosted the night before, or where one had fallen earlier, or where they had drug another bird over and it left the scent. They understand when to run with confidence where they are sent or where they think they are going, and when to hunt. Its a lot to ask of a dog that is still getting the hang of the game... and its beatuyful to see when they do get it all together. travis