online, off grid and trying to train a GWP

[Alice]

I have nothing helpful to contribute, as the marvellous HPR-men of the forum have done it, but your set-up (and dog) sounds wonderful...and yes, before Wullie says it, I am one of those wabbit-crazed spaniel people!

[trekmoor]

Isn't it funny that while some of us , me for example, are starved of rabbits we can train our dogs on , other lucky buggers have them in droves ? It is actually far easier to train steadiness to rabbits where there are plenty of rabbits. It is a bit like the sheep I mentioned earlier. If a pup sees sheep on an almost daily basis it can usually be very easily trained not to chase them. Again it is often the dogs that seldom get the chance to see any sheep that want to chase them.

Wullie

[Dawnrazor]

I have nothing helpful to contribute, as the marvellous HPR-men of the forum have done it, but your set-up (and dog) sounds wonderful...and yes, before Wullie says it, I am one of those wabbit-crazed spaniel people!

"HPR"..... I believe the new term on here is"CGC"!!

[Tina]

Did you tell Rosie off when she lunged for the rabbits in the pen and broke the rope?

Tina

[Tina]

On sheep you have guessed me right Wullie, Fern has had plenty of contact with sheep as I help out at a neighbours farm. She not a committed sheep chaser although I wouldn't trust her completely.

Going back to the issue of pigeon traps what is the benefit of using these as compared to dizzing a pigeon?

It's late for me and I'm too tired to ask the 10, 000 other questions I have. Thank you so much for your detailed responses so far.

Hope your typing fingers are holding up!

Tina

[Tina]

Re: My set up, yes this is my dream house and I'm very lucky but living off-grid has proved to be a much bigger deal than I ever expected. Lots of hard physical work. "A grand life so long as you don't weaken."

[trekmoor]

Yes Tina, I did correct Rosie quite firmly when she broke the rope for the second time. For me "Do not correct in the presence of game" ends once the game has been flushed......the dog, if it moves in after that it is then chasing or at the very least it has ignored the stop whistle.
I correct a dog for not obeying stop whistles ......if I can get to the buggers quickly ! On a check cord I can get to the dogs quickly.

Rosie, was a very fit and a very fast pup/young bitch. She could and did easily outrun my Brittany even when the Brittany was a year or two old , Rosie could and did outrun GSP's belonging to friends too, she then became extremely lazy and will hardly run to hunt at all now . Rosie only hunts where and when there is game fairly nearby to be found. She does not "pull out" to find more distant game nowadays .....she never was much for "pulling out." Many vizslas are like that , as a breed they tend to be "close" hunters and maybe not very fast ones either.

This is Rosie and my cocker Charlie with both dogs pointing there own pheasants.


Rosie sight pointing some pheasants during "dogging in "


Rosie , after settling down from an all out run while hunting would move into a very striking and very fast paced, ground covering , long stride.
Even if she'd done that all the time I'd have been happy for it was beautiful to see and it did cover a lot of ground at speed with an economy of energy expended. Unfortunately as she became older, she stopped doing even that !



She was as a youngster a very determined and hard going bitch.....pity she changed !


Wullie

[Tina]

Got it! Finally - I'm sorry you had to say it twice Wullie and thanks again for your patience

as the bird begins to flush and at that stage if the dog does not stop and preferably sit , I do correct it .......the dog is now in chase mode not point or flush mode !

Yes Tina, I did correct Rosie quite firmly when she broke the rope for the second time. For me "Do not correct in the presence of game" ends once the game has been flushed......the dog, if it moves in after that it is then chasing or at the very least it has ignored the stop whistle.

I'm going out now with a collar, line and 8ft stick (to flush game!) - I'll let you know how I get on

[Tina]

Well I'm afraid that was a total failure. Fern got soooo over excited at being allowed out of the game-free meadow. She is drawn by the smells and gets too far away from me very quickly. I think by nature she is a far ranging dog and there is simply too much game and she gets too excited, like a kid in a sweet shop. Also the area is dense woodland, with steep cliffs and banks so its too easy to loose sight of her. I'm left frantically whistling to keep her in but as she gets more excited she ignores the whistle.

I had her on a long line but the terrain is over grown and it gets tangled up which is fustrating and confusing for her - but I'm desparate to keep her in my sights because I know she won't point for long if at all before diving in to chase. She ends up pulling on the end of a long line.

She actually blundered past three rabbits sending them scattering as she followed their scent but missed them!

I never got a point before giving up.

Oh dear. But its happened like that before that's why I got the quail despite having so much wild game around because I'm convinced I need to re-learn her how to point in a more controlled environment.

Any thoughts?

Tina

[trekmoor]

Aye....I've got a great idea. You come up to my area and hunt my game and I'll come down to yours to hunt down there !

Tina, I am very envious of your game supply. Especially the rabbits . If you lived where I do you'd be saying there wasn't enough game to train your dog on.

It sounds to me as if you seldom take the bitch away from your home area ? Dogs that like to hunt but are fairly tightly restricted as to where they can hunt and maybe how much "rope" is given to them as they hunt often do tend to go a bit loco when they finally do get a chance on fresh ground......it simply is more exciting to them because they haven't grown up always being taken all over the place to hunt.

We sometimes get folks with spaniels on here with much the same problem you have .......it is actually a very nice problem to have .....wish I had that problem.

Wullie