Assessing your canine companion's upland bird hunting and wa

[h2ofwlr]

Assessing your canine companion's upland bird hunting and waterfowling skills

Tony Peterson Blogger, MN Outdoor News
Posted on November 20, 2013

It’s easy to dote upon our hunting dogs and their achievements. In fact, it’s a rare hunter who will openly discuss their dog’s flaws, even if they were blatantly obvious during hunting excursions. I’m not one of those dog owners, and I’ve found over the years that if I take stock in what my dog did poorly while hunting, I can work in the off-season to correct such behavior.

As the fall bird hunting seasons wrap up, consider developing a training strategy to shore-up any faults that your dog exhibited throughout the season.
For instance, did your dog start to drop birds early or perhaps have a difficult time locating wounded birds? Both are bad, but both can be fixed and there isn’t a better time to start working on a refresher in proper retrieves or perhaps a few trailing drills.

Think back to the bad times in the field, and you’ll likely remember something that allowed for the onset of negativity.

My current pup has plenty of flaws, but one that was glaring this fall was her inability to follow my hand commands when looking for birds she didn’t see fall. This is no easy task for a seven-month old pup, but it’s something that we need to work on together. And trust me, we will. She is also going to spend some time training around distractions because she is at the age where she should start to be able to focus solely on the task at hand, and not lose it immediately when a songbird flutters by or a leaf blows across the ground.

If your dog showed a few undesirable traits this fall whether chasing grouse, ducks, pheasants or any game birds, consider planning a training strategy now. What you work on throughout the end of the season and the winter months will become second nature in the summer, and of course when it really counts, next season.

[Labguy23]

I don't know much about this writer and I know not everyone wants what I want in a trained retriever but really what do you expect out of a 7 month old puppy.

[ducksmuggler]

I don't know much about this writer and I know not everyone wants what I want in a trained retriever but really what do you expect out of a 7 month old puppy.

I am with labguy23.... at 7 months you are still training a dog, very able to hunt by most peoples standards but it still is a puppy!!!!!!!!!!!
That said at 7 months I expect a dog to be doing doubles marks, easy triples, and FF before hunted, moving on from there is the fun part!!! granted I stopped in training in June once I was forcing too the pile and went into "tuff " marks and have been hunting my dog since.

[triplecurler]

I'm a meat hunter, not a dog trainer. My dog was hunting youth waterfowl day last year at the age at 5-1/2 months. Everyday is a training session no matter if we're in the house, on a walk or playing in the back yard. Last year I figured he retrieve 60-75 ducks. He just finished this year at 18 months and he retrieved more ducks then last year (hunted with more people).

I did a lot of night retrieving (fetch at night with scented balls) I feel he learned to use his nose and trust it...

[Labguy23]

I don't have a problem with people who hunt young dogs. I had a litter born in May and 3 of the pups hunted all fall. Had plenty of pictures sent to me from their new owners. They are proud of their dogs and I am happy for them. 3 pups from the same litter went to Field Trial homes. They won't hunt until they are done with Field Trials more than likely. The last 2 from the litter are training their pups up until they can run proficient blinds, steady to shot, and able to handle doubles and triples. I wouldn't hunt a pup until they were good on blinds out to 200 yards, very steady, and doing multiple retrieves.

[Goldfish]

You would absolutely hate my dog, lol

Sent from a phancy fone

[triplecurler]

I don't have a problem with people who hunt young dogs. I had a litter born in May and 3 of the pups hunted all fall. Had plenty of pictures sent to me from their new owners. They are proud of their dogs and I am happy for them. 3 pups from the same litter went to Field Trial homes. They won't hunt until they are done with Field Trials more than likely. The last 2 from the litter are training their pups up until they can run proficient blinds, steady to shot, and able to handle doubles and triples. I wouldn't hunt a pup until they were good on blinds out to 200 yards, very steady, and doing multiple retrieves.

I understand didn't mean anything negative, it was asked what could be expected of a 7 month old puppy.

Some day I'll stop when you guys are training in watopa,

[Labguy23]

Sounds good! We train quite a bit!