Reluctant hunting/quartering

[Fullers1845]

Hi all, I have a cocker bitch just over a year old who just will not hunt with any zest. She will hunt a bit on scent but even then goes off the boil after a while and potters about. If there’s no scent she will just sniff about a bit and eat grass.
Oddly enough she is bird and bunny crazy and if she sees one out in the open she will take off like a rocket. I’m a bit reluctant to let her have any more chases as she already seems to think she’s a small fluffy lurcher.

[Cass]

Sounds like she just needs to hunt an area with a higher density of game

[Naj]

Could be that you’re, perhaps unknowingly, putting pressure on her and it’s inhibiting her hunting. Pottering, eating grass, feigning that she doesn’t notice you and being preoccupied with sniffing something can all be displacement behaviours. If she’s anticipating you tossing out a dummy that can also switch her focus off hunting but that’s more apparent.

Naj

[Fullers1845]

Cass it would make sense as she has scented game and seen it at a distance but not made a flush from cover yet, so might not have made the connection that scent leads to finding game.

Naj yes her temperament is as soft as butter, and she will sometimes hunt harder if I let her get away from me. I might try just getting her on some areas with more rabbits and just letting her have her head for a bit, it seems the drive is there just needs bringing out. She does like a thrown retrieve and I have let her go a bit unsteady to thrown one’s to gee her up a bit recently, I suppose being so soft I won’t be too hard to steady her up

[Judy]

My first Cocker wouldn't hunt if she thought there might be a retrieve involved, she slowed right up and kept checking in all the time. I kept retrieve training separate from hunting and she got going. On a shoot day she was a demon hunter / retriever. Game scent was much more interesting than the eleventybillion rabbits we have at home.
One thing I do with pups is scatter a handful of kibble in the grass and let them hunt for it, it's their favourite game, gets their little noses down, also useful for getting them to hunt an area.

[Fullers1845]

Well I kind of had a mix bag of luck this afternoon, early on she chased a rabbit into a hawthorn hedge but once it had gone she recalled on the whistle. Rather than get myself wound up I put her back on the lead and took her a couple of fields over where she hunted really well in light cover for the two bits of rabbit skin I had. Probably let her range out a bit too much a few times but she turned back in without any trouble, probably the best she’s hunted so far

[Fullers1845]

I’ve been working on getting her hyped up hunting tennis balls which has helped, my wife came with me to the field and we managed to get some excited hunting for tennis balls.
Unfortunately walking back to the car she spotted a rabbit and like a Wally I didn’t have my hand through the lead and she managed to chase it into a load of brambles despite being shouted at, then proceeded to smash the brambles for about a minute and flush a load of rabbits out, then came running back to me looking all pleased with herself, not sure on balance whether this was a good or bad occurrence?

[Naj]

Sh@t happens! Forget about it and move on. And hold the leash tighter next time.

[Fullers1845]

Coming along much better now; I've now got her really wound up (and unsteady : ) on tennis balls and been using some really long grass just up the road from me to play the 'where's that ball?!' game. The most fun is when you cover her eyes then throw in the ball before sending her, it's a great game that she loves.