Gundog Training Forum

My 2 1/2 year old ess has turned out to be a great pleasure to shoot over. At 10 weeks, he was allowed and encouraged to hunt and chase wild game right up to 7 months or later. Gradually, with an eye always on what the pup was telling me, I reined in the length of the chase through obedience in the yard and the field. In contrast, I never required steadiness to balls and dummies for well over a year cause he revealed a preference to scent and game which is how it should be from my understanding.

I mentioned my dog is pretty chilled, the other thing of course is that because of the work we have done on gamey ground / around game from an early age- I’m pretty chilled too, I’ve got confidence in her. I definitely wasn’t chilled with my older dog, I was pretty much waiting for her to hot up or run in, and was consequently on edge. All in all the early exposure is winner for all parties! I’m off to Devon later this week and my 2 year old will be on the peg with me. This time last year it was her first day on the peg and she was spot on, now she has done a bit more work, mostly picking up, I’m looking forward to seeing how we go, a development benchmark of sorts.

I was hunting over my dog 9-10 months old

Cass wrote: ↑Sun Nov 24, 2019 12:51 pm 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.

Nickheref wrote: ↑Mon Nov 25, 2019 9:12 am

Cass wrote: ↑Sun Nov 24, 2019 12:51 pm 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.

I like January/ February pups

I remember a successful trialler back in the 70s, whose face I can visualise but whose name eludes me at the moment , who was adamant that you should be shooting over spaniels by five or six months of age to get the best out of them and then start the more serious training at a later stage. And a friend of mine was always working pups on game and shooting over them by 6 months of age, often hunting two out at a time, and he had plenty of success at trials and made up a FTCh.

Naj

Well after reading the thread through so far it's all been positive and no one has mentioned any bad experiences with starting them young, so I wonder why it's not common practice in the UK and we aren't all doing it??

reidller wrote: ↑Mon Nov 25, 2019 2:59 pm Well after reading the thread through so far it's all been positive and no one has mentioned any bad experiences with starting them young, so I wonder why it's not common practice in the UK and we aren't all doing it??

Because there’s a cultural myth lingering on from the 60s and 70s that you shouldn’t start serious training or introduce game until a pup is older than 6 months, by which time you had to clamp down because it would be getting away from you. But the reason for that was because of the harsh methods used back then which could easily squash a pup. Times and methodology have moved on but some folk haven’t.

Naj

Naj wrote: ↑Mon Nov 25, 2019 4:22 pm

reidller wrote: ↑Mon Nov 25, 2019 2:59 pm Well after reading the thread through so far it's all been positive and no one has mentioned any bad experiences with starting them young, so I wonder why it's not common practice in the UK and we aren't all doing it??

Because there’s a cultural myth lingering on from the 60s and 70s that you shouldn’t start serious training or introduce game until a pup is older than 6 months, by which time you had to clamp down because it would be getting away from you. But the reason for that was because of the harsh methods used back then which could easily squash a pup. Times and methodology have moved on but some folk haven’t.

Good to see you giving e-collar programmes their due, Naj... "Serious training and introduc(ing) game" don't have to be lumped in the same sentence or in combination as a training tenet. The secret to early training success - including retrieving cold game and basic obedience - is that it comes off for the pup either as play and din-din (treats), or both.

And if it's "bigger game" you're turning them onto for retrieving, make it bigger play for your "simulated" training - sorry, SP, here goes nothing @8 weeks:

Cass wrote: ↑Mon Nov 25, 2019 12:55 pm I like January/ February pups

Cass, m'lad, that applies to dachsies and Lagotti Romagnolo only, right? No, a Jan.-Feb. pup puts a gundog's introduction to water in late April-early May unless they choose as many do (but not most tollers, most AWS, and certainly not...Airedales). Thus if you've had them on cold game for retrieving from 8-10-12 weeks, you'll have them retrieving from water almost from the minute you put them into it.

MG