Young dog will not pick up a duck
- Thread starter Ed Askew
- Start date
travis bruce
Active member
German verstile world might as well be mars! hehehe. I wish people had to do the things to breed most german verstile breeds do! The world would be a better place.
birdness isn't ness retreive drive. oftentimes dogs that exhibit hi levels of one, will show high levels of another one, so they're often confused. And any dog with any field breeding will have acceptable levels of both, so they're rarely seperated, unless their is a specific problem. The more you start with, the easier it is to finish. Lots of dogs have a ton of retreive, but the birdness is sunk deep in their... or has to be brought out. wing clipped pigdeons often do that, because the wings flapping are like the spinning wings on a decoy, deep into their pysche. Some dogs, especially dogs with marginal drive to begin with, often seem to love to retreive... until they have a bad expereince, or rules are placed on them, or they decide a duck is the best thing in the world, you can keep the plastic. These dogs are the very ones books and programs don't fit, it takes a knack to work thru there problems, not enable their problems, and defiently not simply force your way thru.
FF is not a band aid for what is not there. You can't force a dog to love anything, including you. FF is a means for a dogs mouth to be controled (just like a tap on the rump is getting control of his azz), and to condtion a dog to deal with pressure. Dogs can do lots of stuff without being ff'd... given enough time, patience, knack, and condtions. But if they is ever a bump, you got nothing to go back on. Dogs can be severley screwed up by improper ffing... and you'd be surprised how few dogs are properly forced even by lots of 'pros'. having fixed a few dogs, and trained even more that basics where done by someone else, I can tell you it ALWAYS shows and you got to back up and eventually fix it (and that incldues a few Ive forced as well I had to go back and work on as the next steps showed me my holes!). The kicker of all this is, the very dogs with issues, perhaps less than steller desire or birdness, are the very ones that not only need ff, but need it done as properly as can be. Take a hi roller, and enough time, and anyone can force it... if your not careful their desire is so high, they'll fake you into thinking they are forced, instead they just love to retreive and you never built that obligation into the retreive. travis
birdness isn't ness retreive drive. oftentimes dogs that exhibit hi levels of one, will show high levels of another one, so they're often confused. And any dog with any field breeding will have acceptable levels of both, so they're rarely seperated, unless their is a specific problem. The more you start with, the easier it is to finish. Lots of dogs have a ton of retreive, but the birdness is sunk deep in their... or has to be brought out. wing clipped pigdeons often do that, because the wings flapping are like the spinning wings on a decoy, deep into their pysche. Some dogs, especially dogs with marginal drive to begin with, often seem to love to retreive... until they have a bad expereince, or rules are placed on them, or they decide a duck is the best thing in the world, you can keep the plastic. These dogs are the very ones books and programs don't fit, it takes a knack to work thru there problems, not enable their problems, and defiently not simply force your way thru.
FF is not a band aid for what is not there. You can't force a dog to love anything, including you. FF is a means for a dogs mouth to be controled (just like a tap on the rump is getting control of his azz), and to condtion a dog to deal with pressure. Dogs can do lots of stuff without being ff'd... given enough time, patience, knack, and condtions. But if they is ever a bump, you got nothing to go back on. Dogs can be severley screwed up by improper ffing... and you'd be surprised how few dogs are properly forced even by lots of 'pros'. having fixed a few dogs, and trained even more that basics where done by someone else, I can tell you it ALWAYS shows and you got to back up and eventually fix it (and that incldues a few Ive forced as well I had to go back and work on as the next steps showed me my holes!). The kicker of all this is, the very dogs with issues, perhaps less than steller desire or birdness, are the very ones that not only need ff, but need it done as properly as can be. Take a hi roller, and enough time, and anyone can force it... if your not careful their desire is so high, they'll fake you into thinking they are forced, instead they just love to retreive and you never built that obligation into the retreive. travis
John Augustine
Well-known member
Very well said Travis.
I don't have your experience but have trained a few dogs and judged some hunt tests .
I've seen a lot of dogs that the handlers thought were FF'd. I've also had some high drive
dogs that I didn't show that everyone thought were FF'd and never had a problem.
I appriciate your insight, John
I don't have your experience but have trained a few dogs and judged some hunt tests .
I've seen a lot of dogs that the handlers thought were FF'd. I've also had some high drive
dogs that I didn't show that everyone thought were FF'd and never had a problem.
I appriciate your insight, John
Jay Anglin
Well-known member
As far as the force fetch goes...I'm on my 4th lab and all but one would hold a bird for an hour if I asked them to. The 3rd one tended to spit them into my lap. I've never forced fetch trained one of them. This dude laying next to me will hold a bird as gentle as could be for as long as I ask and then hand it to me when I say "give" and not let go until he feels my hand actually touching the bird.
It's called "positive reinforcement". I could never figure out how making a dog hate something works out to be a positive in the long run. It's like forcing a woman to do something she doesn't want to but knowing she will because she loves you. That ain't right.
But that's just my opinion. I'd say Ed needs to force fetch his dog at this point.
It's called "positive reinforcement". I could never figure out how making a dog hate something works out to be a positive in the long run. It's like forcing a woman to do something she doesn't want to but knowing she will because she loves you. That ain't right.
But that's just my opinion. I'd say Ed needs to force fetch his dog at this point.
Jay Anglin
Well-known member
And for the record...I'm not suggesting anybody else is wrong. I'm just saying that I've stuck to my guns on this thing and I'm happy so far. I'm no pro...maybe I'll send my next one down to Travis and have him FF it.
Ed Askew
Well-known member
Actually I'm having a little luck playing around with some ducks I shot earlier in the week. She likes to find things out in the woods and bring them to me like shed antlers, armadillo bones, dead squirrels, dead birds (like little finches) etc., so I left some wings and a head out there where she could find it. She's found them and brought them to me and I fired her up throwing them out there and having her bring them back over and over. I left a duck carcass that I had gutted and breasted out in the woods too. She found that and picked in up licked it explored it but hasn't brought it to me yet. I bet she'll be picking up that duck carcass by the end of the day today and I've got a lead on some doves a guy has down on the coast.
Ed.
Ed.
Chris Potts
New member
I have seen guys use live mallards to good advantage with what's called a duck race in NAVHDA. Basically a wing clipped or shackled duck is thrown in for a bunch of puppies to chase around a pond, and this really ignites the prey drive on the pups. Perhaps if all else fails you can try that Ed, just go to Craigslist and I am sure you can find some ducks(perhaps not mallards but some kind of duck).
Somehow I missed most of the replies. You got some good advice to. Evan Graham's book will get you over most bumps and you will end up with a solid dog.
Along those same lines, get her all fired up dragging even a dead duck if thats all you can get. When she shows some interest and curiosity pull it away. Kind of like keep away and when she is mad for it then let her have it and bring it to you. A shackled live or wing clipped pigeon works great for young inexperienced dogs too. Lots of praise when they bring it to you!!
Enjoy that journey,
Tony
Along those same lines, get her all fired up dragging even a dead duck if thats all you can get. When she shows some interest and curiosity pull it away. Kind of like keep away and when she is mad for it then let her have it and bring it to you. A shackled live or wing clipped pigeon works great for young inexperienced dogs too. Lots of praise when they bring it to you!!
Enjoy that journey,
Tony
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travis bruce
Active member
Good deal ed... keep on keeping on.
Jay, you've just fell into the disney syndrome. Comparing a dog to a woman, amphormizing them. Dogs are not people. They got souls, and a good one is more loyal than most people. But they aren't people. Thinking of them as people and not dogs is a good way to make the wrong assumptions about things. Postive reinforcement will only get you so far, with dogs or people. Their has to be consquences of not doing the correct thing. And they need the education to know what that is. postive reinforcement is important, but + only will never overcome a dogs will. Repetetion will make you think theres obligation there, but honestly only negative reinforcement makes obligation. There is nothing about ff done properly that makes a dog hate it... it only a tool to make a way to control it, a negative stimulus a dog is taught to turn off (i.e. deal with pressure) by complience, eventually resulting in an obligation to comply, a reflex to do the right thing on command. Done properly its just that, a reflex. The control of the mouth is just one benefit, actually all comands become more solid because you now have a tool to control all parts of the dog, and a dog that is more obeident because of the abilty to deal with pressure and a reflex responce to an unnatural command.
Not trying to sell anyone on it. Instead, rather have people understand its part of a process. Seeing people going to ff to fix a problem, or an e collar to fix a problem, or looking for tips (i.e. the magic silver bullet) is frusutraing when you LOVE to talk about dogs, and LOVE for people to understand the process. Its part of a desescion on how you are going to train your dog, and what your end goals are. Most magic bullet fixes (ff your dog, ecollar for trash breaking, etc) are unfair to a dog... the time wasnt spent to properly preapre a dog, so when the dog doesnt meet expectations, something new is going to be applied. Such good tools used properly, when only used to cover inadequete prepration and typically applied in an unfair manner, only tend to continue the misinformation and beliefs that are out there. Any problem that can be fixxed with these tools, can be fixxed without. And the real rub of it is, with adequete prepration, would have never come up to begin with.
Spend anytime on the dog fourms, and read the what if questions... 90% of the problems are a result of inadequet ob or ff, and the user expecting something the dopg isnt prepared for. The 10% of the other problems are usually trainer induced because the situation wasnt thought thru from the dogs point of view.
Its much easier to have sucess for us to think like a dog, instead of expecting a dog to think like a human. travis
Jay, you've just fell into the disney syndrome. Comparing a dog to a woman, amphormizing them. Dogs are not people. They got souls, and a good one is more loyal than most people. But they aren't people. Thinking of them as people and not dogs is a good way to make the wrong assumptions about things. Postive reinforcement will only get you so far, with dogs or people. Their has to be consquences of not doing the correct thing. And they need the education to know what that is. postive reinforcement is important, but + only will never overcome a dogs will. Repetetion will make you think theres obligation there, but honestly only negative reinforcement makes obligation. There is nothing about ff done properly that makes a dog hate it... it only a tool to make a way to control it, a negative stimulus a dog is taught to turn off (i.e. deal with pressure) by complience, eventually resulting in an obligation to comply, a reflex to do the right thing on command. Done properly its just that, a reflex. The control of the mouth is just one benefit, actually all comands become more solid because you now have a tool to control all parts of the dog, and a dog that is more obeident because of the abilty to deal with pressure and a reflex responce to an unnatural command.
Not trying to sell anyone on it. Instead, rather have people understand its part of a process. Seeing people going to ff to fix a problem, or an e collar to fix a problem, or looking for tips (i.e. the magic silver bullet) is frusutraing when you LOVE to talk about dogs, and LOVE for people to understand the process. Its part of a desescion on how you are going to train your dog, and what your end goals are. Most magic bullet fixes (ff your dog, ecollar for trash breaking, etc) are unfair to a dog... the time wasnt spent to properly preapre a dog, so when the dog doesnt meet expectations, something new is going to be applied. Such good tools used properly, when only used to cover inadequete prepration and typically applied in an unfair manner, only tend to continue the misinformation and beliefs that are out there. Any problem that can be fixxed with these tools, can be fixxed without. And the real rub of it is, with adequete prepration, would have never come up to begin with.
Spend anytime on the dog fourms, and read the what if questions... 90% of the problems are a result of inadequet ob or ff, and the user expecting something the dopg isnt prepared for. The 10% of the other problems are usually trainer induced because the situation wasnt thought thru from the dogs point of view.
Its much easier to have sucess for us to think like a dog, instead of expecting a dog to think like a human. travis
Jay Anglin
Well-known member
Well Travis..whether you were joking around or not I took a little insult in your Disney comment. I think you'd find that my dogs are some of the most well behaved dogs you'll ever come across...certainly better than the VAST majority of trial dogs. They act like people because they live with people and then hunt like bad asses.
If a dog holds a bird perfectly then why do I have to force him to fetch and hold?
But as always it's hard to quantify good hunting...no great hunting dogs when there are no titles or other acronyms associated with them. I guess I'll just go out and keep putting this 2 year old stud on birds and continue the mission of a well finished dog that does things for me before I have to tell him, makes the next move as I think it. And when he messes up I'll treat him like the Alpha dog and it may even hurt a little occasionally.
If a dog holds a bird perfectly then why do I have to force him to fetch and hold?
But as always it's hard to quantify good hunting...no great hunting dogs when there are no titles or other acronyms associated with them. I guess I'll just go out and keep putting this 2 year old stud on birds and continue the mission of a well finished dog that does things for me before I have to tell him, makes the next move as I think it. And when he messes up I'll treat him like the Alpha dog and it may even hurt a little occasionally.
Rich Newman
Active member
If a dog won't pick up a dead duck, what will he do with a crippled old gander. My first dog wasn't force fetched. She was great on ducks. She was also great on geese until she met her match. Needless to say I had no tools to fix this problem if you didn't stone the goose she would run right past it pretending she never saw it. If I only knew back then what I know now. This would have been an easy fix. Tapeing wings on bumpers, smaller birds, teasing with birds just might open up pandoras box the dreaded hard mouth! Then what? There is alot of advise on this thread that may patch this problem but will never fix it. I used Evan's video on FF on my present dog. This video is step by step. If I can get through it any one can.
First, I am not a pro trainer and have only trained my one lab. That said, I cannot disagree with properly force fetching this dog. Hopefully it will not be too long and arduous a process, but as others have said do not hurry through this. Repeat every step and back up to ensure the concept is well engrained. The pressure is unique to every dog, and can be a difficult balancing act.
I would ask about one other idea, which admittedly may be considered as being in the "band-aid" approach category - What would happen if you threw a thawed duck in the water?
I would ask about one other idea, which admittedly may be considered as being in the "band-aid" approach category - What would happen if you threw a thawed duck in the water?
travis bruce
Active member
Jay absolutly no reason for you to take that as insult... if you did I apolgize because it was simple discussion. Your statement about making dogs hate something and comparing a dog to a woman is not unusual.... its where most folks get hung up, they love their dogs (who doesn't) and sometimes forget they're thought processes are much purer and simpler than ours. They are dogs and think like such. We are people and think like such. Without the benefit of vocabulary to communicate its as easy to get the wrong message across as the right. Espeically if you start with only a partial understanding or worst a prediogus against something. We have the benefit of vocabulary, and usually 98% of the time see eye to eye, and you got offended by what i said... heck that shows how easy communication can go awry. You wont belive how many people follow a step in a book because its the next step in the book.. without ever wondering why its done a certain way. Think like a dog and you can overcome most any obstcal, with formal training steps or not. Pinch my ear to make my fat azz eat a steak, i wont love a steak anymore than i do... I know Im different than a dog. dogs are happy to be obedient... they are happy to have a pack leader and follow in... if people where like dogs life would be easier! ha.
If your dog holds a bird perfectly, and suits your needs and standards without ff, then you don't. I told you I wasn't trying to sell anyone on it. But i was trying to explain what it does... that was the discussion. What if your dog suddenly doesn't hold a bird? What if you dog doesn't go when sent? What if your dog balks at a bird? What if you have a problem, now your back to where the OP is... might take a day, might take a week, might take a month... instead if properly ff'd those things would not have happened, and if they did, its one command or 2 commands and a correction and your on with your day.
But hold can be done without force. Its done all the time. The entire process of ff, teaches a dog to have an obligation to retreive (hence where we're different, the point I didnt make but was trying too). I don't think you can make me have an obligation to eat pie... I love pie. I dont think anything can make me have an obligation to it. With the obligation and fetch as a reflex action, the dogs doesn't think (even if for a nano second and complies thinking before a comman isn't obligation) he simply does. Further training teaches dogs to think when they need too, and to simply do when told... its the reason the same dog can watch mutiple birds go down, remember where they are at, put on an intilligent hunt to retreive them, and then line up and run 300 yards straight fighting the wind and angles, and levees, and dtiches and come up with a bird he didnt see.... it all starts by the obligation and reflex action, and condtioning to hunt and think when its apporiate. A properly ff'd dog doesn't switch falls... or switch birds.. he has been condtioning to start the retreive he was directed on and finish that retreive. A properly ff'd dog learns how to deal with pressure, to work thru it, and not shut down when presure is needed. its the foundation for a solid blind running dog. can a dog be taught to run blinds without it... yup. I just did a tune up on a older lab that had 15 months of brit style training from a pro a couple years ago. She ran blinds... she basically hunted the direction she was sent. Good enough for a test or trial? Heck naw. But a meat dog... a meat dog thats fine until theres more than one bird down... because she went and got one, and wouldnt handle away from it. And if she got confused, she just wouldnt go. Without any background to draw upon, I spent more time on her trying to get her to run a set of simple 100 yard blinds on land, than a dog that hadn't even run his first taught blind... and in a month, the young dog with basics was kicking her butt. Doesnt mean shes not a good dog, cause she is, she was cool and i really loved her and her personailty. But her owner, never had been around trained dogs before, had his eyes opened. He loves his dog, and i told him ahead of time it wasnt a fair comparison, but he'll be buying a fully trained, ff'd, and cc'd dog next time. shes better than shes ever been, but with solid basics, in the time and money spent on her, she cudda done amazing things. he too had the common misconcpetion about trial dogs being wild out of control robots that lacked the sense to actually hunt.. until he saw my 13 year old son run 5 dogs off my truck that swung with the gun barrel, looked where you looked, and ignored the old falls and ran straight lines as far the field went.... Everybody doesnt need a dog like that, nor are they going to spend the time money energy and effort to have one like that... but to think those dogs are anything but loved animals with ENORMUS amounts of time spent on them is wrong. And save for one very special dog i can remember, ive never seen one like that wasn't ff'd. No matter how much they love going to get a bird, the bringing it back part and everything else is something we teach them... why not use the cleanest clearest methods to teach that, and spend the time advancing your dog, or crappie fishing, or whatever else you want, than patching holes? Jay you spend a ton of time with your dogs... and get the results you want. Thats awesome. but you also hunt a lot more and get a lot more on the job training than 95% of the people on the board do... dogs only live so long.
As far as the water and a duck tossed... cold water now might just make another problem. If it was warm, then water and another dog would be the quickest way out of it. But dog gets in cold water, and decides to not get duck, it aint getting back into cold water again. hunting is one thing, but I dont even run water blinds with my dogs until the water gets 55 degrees or so... dogs no matter how much they love the water, are land animals and anything involing a possible fubar and water should be avoided. travis
If your dog holds a bird perfectly, and suits your needs and standards without ff, then you don't. I told you I wasn't trying to sell anyone on it. But i was trying to explain what it does... that was the discussion. What if your dog suddenly doesn't hold a bird? What if you dog doesn't go when sent? What if your dog balks at a bird? What if you have a problem, now your back to where the OP is... might take a day, might take a week, might take a month... instead if properly ff'd those things would not have happened, and if they did, its one command or 2 commands and a correction and your on with your day.
But hold can be done without force. Its done all the time. The entire process of ff, teaches a dog to have an obligation to retreive (hence where we're different, the point I didnt make but was trying too). I don't think you can make me have an obligation to eat pie... I love pie. I dont think anything can make me have an obligation to it. With the obligation and fetch as a reflex action, the dogs doesn't think (even if for a nano second and complies thinking before a comman isn't obligation) he simply does. Further training teaches dogs to think when they need too, and to simply do when told... its the reason the same dog can watch mutiple birds go down, remember where they are at, put on an intilligent hunt to retreive them, and then line up and run 300 yards straight fighting the wind and angles, and levees, and dtiches and come up with a bird he didnt see.... it all starts by the obligation and reflex action, and condtioning to hunt and think when its apporiate. A properly ff'd dog doesn't switch falls... or switch birds.. he has been condtioning to start the retreive he was directed on and finish that retreive. A properly ff'd dog learns how to deal with pressure, to work thru it, and not shut down when presure is needed. its the foundation for a solid blind running dog. can a dog be taught to run blinds without it... yup. I just did a tune up on a older lab that had 15 months of brit style training from a pro a couple years ago. She ran blinds... she basically hunted the direction she was sent. Good enough for a test or trial? Heck naw. But a meat dog... a meat dog thats fine until theres more than one bird down... because she went and got one, and wouldnt handle away from it. And if she got confused, she just wouldnt go. Without any background to draw upon, I spent more time on her trying to get her to run a set of simple 100 yard blinds on land, than a dog that hadn't even run his first taught blind... and in a month, the young dog with basics was kicking her butt. Doesnt mean shes not a good dog, cause she is, she was cool and i really loved her and her personailty. But her owner, never had been around trained dogs before, had his eyes opened. He loves his dog, and i told him ahead of time it wasnt a fair comparison, but he'll be buying a fully trained, ff'd, and cc'd dog next time. shes better than shes ever been, but with solid basics, in the time and money spent on her, she cudda done amazing things. he too had the common misconcpetion about trial dogs being wild out of control robots that lacked the sense to actually hunt.. until he saw my 13 year old son run 5 dogs off my truck that swung with the gun barrel, looked where you looked, and ignored the old falls and ran straight lines as far the field went.... Everybody doesnt need a dog like that, nor are they going to spend the time money energy and effort to have one like that... but to think those dogs are anything but loved animals with ENORMUS amounts of time spent on them is wrong. And save for one very special dog i can remember, ive never seen one like that wasn't ff'd. No matter how much they love going to get a bird, the bringing it back part and everything else is something we teach them... why not use the cleanest clearest methods to teach that, and spend the time advancing your dog, or crappie fishing, or whatever else you want, than patching holes? Jay you spend a ton of time with your dogs... and get the results you want. Thats awesome. but you also hunt a lot more and get a lot more on the job training than 95% of the people on the board do... dogs only live so long.
As far as the water and a duck tossed... cold water now might just make another problem. If it was warm, then water and another dog would be the quickest way out of it. But dog gets in cold water, and decides to not get duck, it aint getting back into cold water again. hunting is one thing, but I dont even run water blinds with my dogs until the water gets 55 degrees or so... dogs no matter how much they love the water, are land animals and anything involing a possible fubar and water should be avoided. travis
Ed
Read your posts carefully & seems like you are refering to your dog being not willing to pick up a bird off the ground. I see no mention of retreiving in water. My 13 year old Boykin would never pick a bird up off the ground but would always retreive from water. On land she would hold a wounded bird down until I got there. There were a few times when this inconvenienced me but over the years it was no big deal.
If I had your situation and was determined to correct it I would use a professional trainer I trusted to do force fetch.
I have seen a dog trained for force fetch and it is something I would not want to do myself. I put too much pressure on a AWS years ago and ended up with a gun shy dog I fed for 13 years.
Read your posts carefully & seems like you are refering to your dog being not willing to pick up a bird off the ground. I see no mention of retreiving in water. My 13 year old Boykin would never pick a bird up off the ground but would always retreive from water. On land she would hold a wounded bird down until I got there. There were a few times when this inconvenienced me but over the years it was no big deal.
If I had your situation and was determined to correct it I would use a professional trainer I trusted to do force fetch.
I have seen a dog trained for force fetch and it is something I would not want to do myself. I put too much pressure on a AWS years ago and ended up with a gun shy dog I fed for 13 years.
Wispete
Well-known member
Lots of good advice on this tread. I have to chuckle about a few things. I have had a few dogs during my life time. Some excellent,some good, some useless. It helps if you can think like a dog, recognize every dog is different, have lots and lots of time to work to work with your dog. Now if you can not do those things. You should have a very loud voice that can be heard all the way across the marsh. Use words that are not printable on this site. All the time ignoring the confuse look on your dogs face.
My next project......My newest duck dog... Meet Daisy...Truly a con artist... Ed I think you will have a easier time than me.
View attachment _IGP9325e.JPG
My next project......My newest duck dog... Meet Daisy...Truly a con artist... Ed I think you will have a easier time than me.
View attachment _IGP9325e.JPG
Jay Anglin
Well-known member
Travis that is one of the finest posts I've ever seen from you. I think I just needed to go take a poop after plowing snow all day 
I originally said I was gonna ff this dude but I didn't because he would hold so well. I can see now that there are other benefits and it's not just a matter of standing there with a dead bird in his mouth. I'll do the next one...promise!
I originally said I was gonna ff this dude but I didn't because he would hold so well. I can see now that there are other benefits and it's not just a matter of standing there with a dead bird in his mouth. I'll do the next one...promise!
travis bruce
Active member
Good jay. i was only trying to inform, defiently wasn't try to offend you.
i got into the dog thing because i was a duck hunter. I remember how hard I tried with my first dog. Reading the books, called my self training. In reality, I accomplished very little. Sure with her ojt being the only dog in our group, she eventually turned into a good hunting dog. You had to tie her up, she'd balk at a wounded honker cause they whipped her, and she'd whine a little, and fart a lot. She didnt handle, but you could throw a rock in a direction and she'd go, and if a bird was down she knew what cripples did. She was 7 when I got my next dog, the first one to be actually trained. 30 minutes into his first duck hunt he had done numerous things she'd never been able to do. Duck season is now our time off, i dont train during duck season. And everybody I know has a dog, or mutiple dogs, except my brother, so they all got to share blind time. TJ's spooky puppy went once or twice last year, but really didnt have a clue and we didnt have enough birds to get her over the hump. her first real retreive this year was a 165 yard crosswind water blind... she 2 whistled it. Something that when i got into this, I didn't even it was hard, let alone that dogs could do it like that. She picked up 27 ducks saturday, inclduing several mutiples, and several blinds. her training has taught her about wind, hunting, get into the deepest cover adviable, all she needed was a few 'real' hunts to put it together. You'd never imagine it was her 2nd real hunt. Tj has no frame of refrence... we've always had kick azz dogs. He's never been hunting without a grand dog or qaa dog unless we where hunting a clients dog on a first hunt. he just kinda assumes dogs ought to do all that stuff! ha. he chose spooky puppy, knowing she was speical needs dog, and its taken us a ton of time to make her, but shes an incredible dog and now has a happy life as a hunting and hunt test dog. If he'd gave up, shed been a pet somewhere... nobody would have ever taken the time he did with her. Maybe you can make it down sometime and see her in action! travis
i got into the dog thing because i was a duck hunter. I remember how hard I tried with my first dog. Reading the books, called my self training. In reality, I accomplished very little. Sure with her ojt being the only dog in our group, she eventually turned into a good hunting dog. You had to tie her up, she'd balk at a wounded honker cause they whipped her, and she'd whine a little, and fart a lot. She didnt handle, but you could throw a rock in a direction and she'd go, and if a bird was down she knew what cripples did. She was 7 when I got my next dog, the first one to be actually trained. 30 minutes into his first duck hunt he had done numerous things she'd never been able to do. Duck season is now our time off, i dont train during duck season. And everybody I know has a dog, or mutiple dogs, except my brother, so they all got to share blind time. TJ's spooky puppy went once or twice last year, but really didnt have a clue and we didnt have enough birds to get her over the hump. her first real retreive this year was a 165 yard crosswind water blind... she 2 whistled it. Something that when i got into this, I didn't even it was hard, let alone that dogs could do it like that. She picked up 27 ducks saturday, inclduing several mutiples, and several blinds. her training has taught her about wind, hunting, get into the deepest cover adviable, all she needed was a few 'real' hunts to put it together. You'd never imagine it was her 2nd real hunt. Tj has no frame of refrence... we've always had kick azz dogs. He's never been hunting without a grand dog or qaa dog unless we where hunting a clients dog on a first hunt. he just kinda assumes dogs ought to do all that stuff! ha. he chose spooky puppy, knowing she was speical needs dog, and its taken us a ton of time to make her, but shes an incredible dog and now has a happy life as a hunting and hunt test dog. If he'd gave up, shed been a pet somewhere... nobody would have ever taken the time he did with her. Maybe you can make it down sometime and see her in action! travis
Ed Askew
Well-known member
Well now she's fired up about fetching a thawed out duck I killed last week, and so today we went to a quail farm about an hour east of here and shot a bunch of quail. She loves to fetch quail and chased birds all up in the brambles, flushed them, retrieved clipped wing birds without a problem. Next hunt is day after Christmas on an island off the Louisiana coast. I'll be very surprised if the water is icy down there, but she'll have her first airboat ride.
Ed.
Ed.
Pat M
Active member
Good to hear!! I've been following this post with lots of interesting, being a first time dog trainer and all.
Its all about experience and confience for the dog. We are planning a pheasant hunt on a game farm over Xmas break with one of my buddies whoes home on leave from the Navy and I plan on using Kodiak. I was talking to the owner and he said if we broke into two groups (we have 7 guys now ) his son could run there 10 month old pup too. The converstation went to Kodiak not being very good at pheasants (finding them at least, he'll fetch them up) and his pup not being very good with ducks. Its a numbers/experience game. I got Kodiak on quite a few ducks this fall and only a few pheasants where as he got his pup on a ton of pheasants and only a few ducks.
I've taken Kodiak at out on few "wild" (almost all of our pheasants on public land are released birds) pheasant hunts but I trained mainly for ducks. I had kept him at heel during train most of time so being able to roam and search for birds before the shot is new to him. The fact that we haven't found many birds doesn't help him learn what he is searching for either. I have hidden a few bumpers with pheasants wings on them but we haven't done it enough.
Good luck with the hunt. I hope the hard work has made off.
Its all about experience and confience for the dog. We are planning a pheasant hunt on a game farm over Xmas break with one of my buddies whoes home on leave from the Navy and I plan on using Kodiak. I was talking to the owner and he said if we broke into two groups (we have 7 guys now ) his son could run there 10 month old pup too. The converstation went to Kodiak not being very good at pheasants (finding them at least, he'll fetch them up) and his pup not being very good with ducks. Its a numbers/experience game. I got Kodiak on quite a few ducks this fall and only a few pheasants where as he got his pup on a ton of pheasants and only a few ducks.
I've taken Kodiak at out on few "wild" (almost all of our pheasants on public land are released birds) pheasant hunts but I trained mainly for ducks. I had kept him at heel during train most of time so being able to roam and search for birds before the shot is new to him. The fact that we haven't found many birds doesn't help him learn what he is searching for either. I have hidden a few bumpers with pheasants wings on them but we haven't done it enough.
Good luck with the hunt. I hope the hard work has made off.