Adding scent

[Lloyd90]

Here's the young lad after Saturday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dETKHQqM8z4

[CockerCanuck]

Lloyd, don't react quickly to what I have to say because we use our dogs in Canada so differently than you do. I will be very interested to the reaction you will get from the many on this forum who are much better versed than I am in British style training and gundog work. However just to throw my 2 cents in I find your dog very much underfoot and you are nagging him too much. I would worry much less about control and let him get out and hunt. I suppose its a bit like teenage children, you want to control everything because you love them and want them to only do the right thing but sometimes you just need to let them go and experience the big world.

However, please remember this is advice from across the pond. Take more heed from those nearby who use their dogs more like you will.

[ips]

CC, i suppose it depends a great deal on what Lloyd does or intends to do with the dog. If beating on a driven day i would say from my experience the closer the better if rough shooting then maybe a bit to close having said that it all serms6to go out the window on a shoot day anyway as 10yds in training becomes 30yds in the real world

[Lloyd90]

Lloyd, don't react quickly to what I have to say because we use our dogs in Canada so differently than you do. I will be very interested to the reaction you will get from the many on this forum who are much better versed than I am in British style training and gundog work. However just to throw my 2 cents in I find your dog very much underfoot and you are nagging him too much. I would worry much less about control and let him get out and hunt. I suppose its a bit like teenage children, you want to control everything because you love them and want them to only do the right thing but sometimes you just need to let them go and experience the big world.

However, please remember this is advice from across the pond. Take more heed from those nearby who use their dogs more like you will.

Hi mate, don’t worry I welcome all discussion.

From my (very limited) experience, but also the advice I have had from a lot of successful trailers, is to keep the dog tight whilst young.

He has seen very limited game, and as he gets on scent, trust me he pulls out. If you can’t keep the dog under control with no scent you’ve no chance on it.

Going out lately I have let him out further as you suggest as we are getting onto more scented ground and will try to find more game as we go on.

This coming season I plan to get him out and try to rough shoot over him.

I am praying he develops gun sense, and works out quickly that he needs to work in range to get the flush, the shot and the retrieve. Once that’s clicked he should keep within gunshot range naturally and I can just leave him crack on with it.

Oh PS, I’m getting into the habit of not speaking to him at all, that was new ground / scent for him so give him a bit of encouragement.

[newf]

I don’t see anything wrong in the clip. A nag is something constant and ineffectual. Ted, will open up after more scent and game are found together. Thanks for the demo. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

[Miesque]

He's starting to back cast.

Once you shoot over them it really does all click for them as to at life is about!

[Lloyd90]

He's starting to back cast.

Once you shoot over them it really does all click for them as to at life is about!

Is that doubling back on himself? Anything needed to sort it?

Really looking forward to the coming season I hope he’ll trial but it’s not the end of the world, but I will thoroughly enjoy shooting over him and seeing him come along

[Miesque]

Yes, he should turn into the wind - some judges have a particular hatred of back casters. I just push mine to turn out away from me but a dog hunted into the wind enough soon learns which way to turn to avoid bumping game!

[Lloyd90]

Arriving for our walk tonight I saw two cock birds going into the meadow of 2ft tall grass. I quickly got Ted out knowing roughly where the bird was and quartered him towards it.



Ted hunted well and really got going on some scent.



He reached the area and was hunting well. He flushed the bird, a positive flush not bumping one by accident. I knew from past times that he had chased and preempted it again so was running towards him the second he got to the area just incase.



Ted flushed the bird and seemed shocked again. Likely his inexperience, he’s used to finding balls or dummy’s at the end of scent not a bird. Anyways as the bird flushed he sat, but then tried to give chase.

I was on him the second he moved, think he got about 6 feet and I got hold of him and dragged him back to the spot of the flush sat him up and blew the stop whistle.



Waited a minute then set set him off in the opposite direction. He hunted the whole field with good intensity and without stopping.

Was quite pleased with his going. I think his pattern could be tidied up a bit but was a good day overall.

Trying to be consistent with the flush and as he gets more experienced hoping that it sticks. Also just waiting for a mate to finish his rabbit pen and will get Ted in there with a long line to get the message home.

[Naj]

Wind direction should be your first consideration before you even cast the dog off hunting and you should keep evaluating it as you hunt. My first thoughts were that the wind may have been from behind or from over a shoulder because the dog kept going forward and turning back (into it?). Whether the dog is backcasting on the turn on a head wind (a fault) or dropping downwind and working (correctly) back into it would depend entirely on the wind direction in relation to where you’re heading. If you were hunting into a headwind then this would, indeed, be faulty backcasting on the turn but that would surprise me because even green dogs naturally want to cut a wind at right angles, unless you’ve mucked them up in some way.

Naj