Young dogs in the field

[Lloyd90]

I was hunting over my dog 9-10 months old

Depends when they are whelped to a certain extend, a pup whelped in July is unlikely to be able to be shot over until it is 14 or 15 months if you don't have access to rabbit ground simply due to our game laws. I hunt my youngsters as much as I can but usually cannot shoot over them until they are older.

My fellow was whelped in June. By November I was shooting over him with my mature lab. I never discouraged a chase after a flush, that first season. I wanted him to find his wheels unhindered especially around the distractions of shot and the mild restrictions on range.

One reality to this early shooting exposure was that fact I moved from water fowling to rough shooting of grouse. The speed, treed habitat and shooting learning curve contributed to a lot of missed birds and ‘gone away’ cues with no retrieves. As My shooting improved over the next season, then steadiness enforcement started to fit in like a zipper with the odd snag.

What did you do to go from a dog that was freely allowed to chase game, to a dog that was not, and become steady to flush?

[Cass]

Once a dog knows it can't catch a bird it's not overly hard to install brakes. You can always add brakes after.... the same cannot be said for the gas pedal.

[Springcopse spaniels]

Once a dog knows it can't catch a bird it's not overly hard to install brakes. You can always add brakes after.... the same cannot be said for the gas pedal.

We allow all our young dogs to chase, they soon learn.
After Lloyd had gone the other day I took one of the pups in to the wood. Where Lloyds first flush was there where 5 cock birds..plenty of scent and action

[Nickheref]

Once a dog knows it can't catch a bird it's not overly hard to install brakes. You can always add brakes after.... the same cannot be said for the gas pedal.

We allow all our young dogs to chase, they soon learn.
After Lloyd had gone the other day I took one of the pups in to the wood. Where Lloyds first flush was there where 5 cock birds..plenty of scent and action

I don't allow mine to, it is just that I could not stop them even if I wanted to

[Judy]

You are all presupposing ready access to game and game which the Keeper doesn't mind being chased about by pups (or access to wild game), I would say the vast majority of gundog trainers, amateurs like myself, don't have this facility and our dogs first real introduction to game is on a shoot day when beating or picking up. In my case a commercial shoot which lays on 28 - 30 average 200 bird days. I let my pups mature and ensure they are under control both on stop and recall long before they are exposed to that lot. Rabbits they are exposed to from day one and are immune to but then, I don't shoot rabbits so there's no reason for them to get excited about them in any big way.

[Nickheref]

I don't shoot rabbits so there's no reason for them to get excited about them in any big way.

I shoot about 1 rabbit per season but my dogs still hunt them if the get the chance with as much if not more enthusiasm than they do pheasants! My problem is they don't see enough of them shot!
I don't shoot woodcock (well hardly ever unless a young dog has had a long hard hunt for very little and needs a retrieve) but they all still hunt them.
We don't have many partridge here, my 3 year old flushed her first a week ago but she knew they were for hunting and put a lot of effort into pushing them out although she had never seen one before.

[Springcopse spaniels]

As head keeper of my own shoot for training, I dont mind

[newf]

Depends when they are whelped to a certain extend, a pup whelped in July is unlikely to be able to be shot over until it is 14 or 15 months if you don't have access to rabbit ground simply due to our game laws. I hunt my youngsters as much as I can but usually cannot shoot over them until they are older.

My fellow was whelped in June. By November I was shooting over him with my mature lab. I never discouraged a chase after a flush, that first season. I wanted him to find his wheels unhindered especially around the distractions of shot and the mild restrictions on range.

One reality to this early shooting exposure was that fact I moved from water fowling to rough shooting of grouse. The speed, treed habitat and shooting learning curve contributed to a lot of missed birds and ‘gone away’ cues with no retrieves. As My shooting improved over the next season, then steadiness enforcement started to fit in like a zipper with the odd snag.

What did you do to go from a dog that was freely allowed to chase game, to a dog that was not, and become steady to flush?

Though he was allowed to chase, the yard training was always advancing in terms of communication and control. That training was always being proofed on scent in the real world in terms or stopping, turning, recall and ‘leave it’ while the chase was unhindered.

Later when I decided to begin stopping the chase, I had all my communication in place and could begin correcting the dog for not listening. Just to reiterate, I could now correct for ignoring a command and not for chasing; there is a difference.

So, in the beginning if he ignored the stop whistle, he was told 'NO' and chased down and firmly brought back calmly and quietly. The whistle blown again and then left sitting ‘til I went back to my own position. Dog was then praised and recalled before being told to hunt on once again. After a few more repetitions of being corrected then I could apply punishment consistently for doing the wrong thing: not stopping. This is the point that requires emphasis: for any punishment to be effective it must be INEVITABLE and something the dog would rather AVOID.

Some critics will only see aversive tactics being utilized but the reality is being dismissed. The whole hunting and training scene is dynamic. Opportunities are riff with offering positive feedback in terms of encouragement and unbridled freedom to hunt and be a dog.

PS. Lloyd, reading a dog is paramount in training. Yes it is important to pick up on what a dog is about to do but it is equally essential to see what a dog is offering in terms of effort. E.G. in the early stages of cutting off the chase, and a dog sits or stops yards beyond the point of the whistle then it should be taken for what it is: EFFORT, and praised accordingly. Whittling away or shaping the desired ‘stop’ is only a half dozen flushes away.

[Naj]

Just a caveat here for U.K. members. Cass and Newf and our other friends across the pond, and myself, are hunting and training on wild game in relatively low densities compared with the artificially high numbers that the majority in the UK are faced with. So a pup quickly learns when there is a bird or perhaps covey of birds within the vicinity, finds it or them and then once gone there is likely nothing much else to distract it until the next bird contact which might be a good hunt beyond. On the more organised training they’re adept at using planted birds or Johnny House quail in a managed way, some elements of which would be illegal in the U.K.

Contrast that to this country where dogs are often faced with a confusing fog of birds and scent. So if a pup is running into one bird after another after another it’s going to learn different things to a pup that flushes a single bird and chases and quickly realises that there’s not much point in the chase. But that simply highlights the need for different management that needs to be tailored to the different contexts that individual handlers and their dogs have to live with. It doesn’t detract from the fact that managed exposure to game and scent from an early age is a positive advantage when habituating a dog to the excitement of game contact. So I don’t think that anybody is advocating unfettered chasing of birds in a wood packed full of reared pheasants, if any keeper other than Springcopse would even allow that . But it stands to reason that a pup that has regular access to scented ground and starts with most of its training being done on such ground is going to see it as no big deal, compared with a dog that has been sheltered from such contact over its formative months and then been introduced to the mind blowing distraction of game and scent several months later when quite mature in its mind and body. It’s a bit like chucking it in the deep end and hoping you’ll be able to rescue it when things go wrong.

Just to pick up on Newf’s comment on the use of aversives. They undoubtedly work if used correctly but if you’ve proofed the stop command by degrees under the distraction of game then you should hopefully be able to keep them to a minimum. But I think that jumping from the house or yard to hunting in the field without any intermediate proofing of commands to birds is unfair on the dog and too big a jump. And justifying the use of aversives by dumping the blame on the dog and/or trying to make a spurious distinction between ignoring and chasing might make you feel better about punishing your dog but will be completely lost on your dog, which only sees its handler being mean to it. But I do agree that if you’re using punishment it needs to be consistently applied and something the dog would rather avoid, but if you’re going to use it then own it, as they say.

Naj

[crackerd]

Thanks for the caveat, Naj, and for the "poultry report" - from an "ex-officio" UK member.

Couple of things. I never let a dog chase from the start - working first on steadiness with distractions from inanimate objects - and then, after much positive praise for good behaviour in plopping onto their bottoms, converting to birds. That happens pretty fast if you get a pup on a hup routine to any kind of movement - and I've always felt, at least since "wiser crania" so advised, that it's easier to inculcate a good habit than break a dog of a "bad" one. Corollary to that, I do not use aversives to stop or hup the dog, either - or to "punish" the dog for running in, either. Do that and next thing you know, you'll have a spaniel that wouldn't dare push a bird up in any circumstances, "blinking" them (ignoring the birds by running past them) for "fear of frying."

MG

Just a caveat here for U.K. members. Cass and Newf and our other friends across the pond, and myself, are hunting and training on wild game in relatively low densities compared with the artificially high numbers that the majority in the UK are faced with. So a pup quickly learns when there is a bird or perhaps covey of birds within the vicinity, finds it or them and then once gone there is likely nothing much else to distract it until the next bird contact which might be a good hunt beyond. On the more organised training they’re adept at using planted birds or Johnny House quail in a managed way, some elements of which would be illegal in the U.K.

Contrast that to this country where dogs are often faced with a confusing fog of birds and scent. So if a pup is running into one bird after another after another it’s going to learn different things to a pup that flushes a single bird and chases and quickly realises that there’s not much point in the chase. But that simply highlights the need for different management that needs to be tailored to the different contexts that individual handlers and their dogs have to live with. It doesn’t detract from the fact that managed exposure to game and scent from an early age is a positive advantage when habituating a dog to the excitement of game contact. So I don’t think that anybody is advocating unfettered chasing of birds in a wood packed full of reared pheasants, if any keeper other than Springcopse would even allow that . But it stands to reason that a pup that has regular access to scented ground and starts with most of its training being done on such ground is going to see it as no big deal, compared with a dog that has been sheltered from such contact over its formative months and then been introduced to the mind blowing distraction of game and scent several months later when quite mature in its mind and body. It’s a bit like chucking it in the deep end and hoping you’ll be able to rescue it when things go wrong.

Just to pick up on Newf’s comment on the use of aversives. They undoubtedly work if used correctly but if you’ve proofed the stop command by degrees under the distraction of game then you should hopefully be able to keep them to a minimum. But I think that jumping from the house or yard to hunting in the field without any intermediate proofing of commands to birds is unfair on the dog and too big a jump. And justifying the use of aversives by dumping the blame on the dog and/or trying to make a spurious distinction between ignoring and chasing might make you feel better about punishing your dog but will be completely lost on your dog, which only sees its handler being mean to it. But I do agree that if you’re using punishment it needs to be consistently applied and something the dog would rather avoid, but if you’re going to use it then own it, as they say.