anyone experienced a dog that cant scent birds?!

[Elias]

am just curious...sometimes i feel my pup cant smell the birds....maybe he doesnt. anyone experienced that. and how can i be sure about that??

[Quailtail]

I bought a Brittany several years ago that could not smell a wild bird, but was a bird finding machine on pen raised birds. I do not know what caused this. Perhaps the pen raised birds had more scent.

[Ruffshooter]

Why do you think that?

Are you talking about training or wild bird hunting or preserve hunting?

Many times the dog can be just a few feet away from a bird but on the wrong side of the wind.
Many times there is so much scent a young dog will get confused and not sure which scent is the one they want.
Some times young dogs get preoccupied with everything around them and being free to run that they are just doing that till they actually happen on to a bird.

Just for your own satisfaction, put a bird in your hand and let your dog smell it. You will see he does.

Rick

[snips]

How old is the dog...What exposure has he had so far?

[Neil]

There is no question that some dogs find more birds than others, but I have always thought they all had pretty near the same scenting ability. Oh, I think it varies some, but not so much that they can't detect a bird. Their noses are so sensitive, that the standard deviation is insignificant from one side to the other.

It is how they are trained to use their nose and where they take it that makes the difference.

And if a dog can smell pen birds he can smell wild ones, he just was not trained to.

I have often heard that certain diseases such as distemper can adversely effect their ability to properly scent, but have never experienced it, even with dogs that had had the disease. Also some antibiotics are said to, again no personal experience.

Just train the dog, chances are very much in your favor he will learn.

Neil

[Greg Jennings]

Elias, with all the misdirection you've had training that dog, do you think it might be possible that the dog is confused or blinking the birds? If the training mistakes have caused a bad association with birds, the dog might ignore them in order to ignore the uncomfortable consequences.

Greg J.

[Elias]

he is 1year and 8months old now! actually he likes to find them and to flush them, yesterday he took scent at about 5 or 6m away from a woodcock and he was walkint toward it with his nose really high and he flushed it. i shot it for him! he passed by the dead bird 5 times before fining it...so i was wondering why sometimes i feel he have a great nose and sometimes he dont flair the bird! am sure in the past year he was confused and was still playing but now he is all exited and know that he have to find the bird! he doesnt want to point! he is whoa broke and he have all the basics. all the experienced hunters in here and in my country told me patience and he will point, but WHEN!! am taking him everyday on wild birds and everyday he is finding btw 5 to 10 woodcoks but no pointing.
and about the misdirection i trained that dog i think my only problem was the wing on a string! wut uncomfortable situations u mean?!:S the dog was never mistreated!

so far the dog flushed chukars, rabbits,wild quails and woodcoks. he pointed some pen raised quails.

[BigShooter]

First of all a dead bird doesn't leave nearly as much scent as a live bird that has walked a bit. It's not uncommon for dogs to have more difficulty locating dead birds versus finding live ones.

Secondly, if your dog is flushing birds and not pointing that is your fault as a trainer. You have not applied check cord training properly and you are rewarding the dog for flushing birds. Only under rare circumstances should you shoot a bird that was not pointed.

[adogslife]

A cooperative dog should not be creeping in on a nonmvoing bird. Why don't you whoa him? Maybe he feels competition with you?
Maybe he thinks this is what you want him to do? Aslong as he is finding birds the rest is cooperation and obedience. He has not learned how to handle birds yet. Stop shooting nonpointed birds.

[Elias]

i am shooting woodcoks and now this in the only wild bird(open season) we have and as woodcok hunters u all know that at least we have to walk 3 to 4 hours to find them in here, its a bit uncomfortable not shooting them! in 2 days am going there i will keep him on the CC and if he flush i wont shoot! lets c where this will go.

[BigBoyTank]

Bird hunting with a dog is not about rewarding yourself with shot because you've been beating the brush for hours. Every trip out is an opportunity for your dog to learn and your doing your dog a disservice by shooting birds that are not pointed. Until you go back to the basics and retrain the dog the right way your impatience and lost opportunities will continue to discourage you and bring you here with questions that you should know the answers too.

[Ruffshooter]

Don't fret too much about walking over a dead woodcock. Many dogs will do that even when they are experienced. Just something about a woodcock. Worms mud, woodcock all the same.

[Cajun Casey]

Seen several lately. They had assorted tick borne illnesses.

[Greg Jennings]

I think Elias, the OP, said later that the dog is finding live birds, but didn't find this particular dead woodcock. That does not equate to being unable to smell.

Greg J.

[Elias]

so back to the CC and no more hunting wild birds until they are pointed! thank you guys!

[Ruffshooter]

No, keep hunting, shoot pointed birds.

[A/C Guy]

First of all a dead bird doesn't leave nearly as much scent as a live bird that has walked a bit. It's not uncommon for dogs to have more difficulty locating dead birds versus finding live ones. ..

The opposite is true. The bird's scent would not be diminished 2 minutes after being flushed and shot. The scent will be stronger due to being shot plus the smell of the blood added to the scent. That is how a dog knows it is ok to retrieve a shot bird, the mixture of the scent with the blood and the smell from the lead shot. If there was no difference in the scent, the dog would point every downed bird and not retrieve downed birds. While hunting, our dogs can smell the difference between a downed bird and live birds in the same bushes. They retrieve the downed birds then go back for the live birds. They can smell the difference. He just needs to train the dog to retrieve "dead".

[BigShooter]

First of all a dead bird doesn't leave nearly as much scent as a live bird that has walked a bit. It's not uncommon for dogs to have more difficulty locating dead birds versus finding live ones. ..

The opposite is true. The bird's scent would not diminished 2 minutes after being flushed and shot. The scent will be stronger due to being shot plus the smell of the blood added to the scent. That is how a dog knows it is ok to retrieve a shot bird, the mixture of the scent with the blood and the smell from the lead shot. If there was no difference in the scent, the dog would point every downed bird and not retrieve downed birds. While hunting, our dogs can smell the difference between a downed bird and live birds in the same bushes. They retrieve the downed birds then go back for the live birds. They can smell the difference. He just needs to train the dog to retrieve "dead".

I absolutely disagree. A bird that falls dead leaves no scent trail and only has scent in one spot. Dogs definitely have more difficulty locating a bird that has fallen dead, especially in thick cover.

I do not disagree that dogs can distinquish the difference between a dead bird, a wounded bird & a live bird. While I have had pointing dogs track a wounded bird over 1/2 a mile and return, bird in the mouth, a dog cannot track a bird that falls dead. I also have had pointing dogs point a wounded bird but I've never had an experienced pointing dog point a dead bird.

[gunner]

When I was a kid distemper was still a problem in some areas. As Neil pointed out some dogs that survived the disease may have lost their scenting abilities. I remember seeing some dogs that survived having gnarly looking teeth. Some of them handled birds just fine. Again as Neil pointed out, some blinking dogs could slip by game without giving as much as a howdoo as they masterfully skipped by. Usually the case of somebody putting too much pressure on a dog around game.

[Ruffshooter]

A dog can scent a flushed bird trail. I have one brit that does this on occasion. He will trail a flushed bird for how ever far till we find it, flush it, or bump it. It does not happen too often but when it does it makes you realize how sensitive their noses are.

I remember the first time. It was a dead calm day but cold. Dexter my old brit had bumped a bird and it flew off a long ways from what I could see and maybe 20 feet high as it flew away. I pulled Dexter out, (I was going to go back in a while to work it but wanted it to settle in) , Buster was working the other side of the trail, In about 60 to 90 seconds he went across to where Dexter bumped the bird, I was about to call him out when I saw his head go up and his nose in the air like a perriscope. He was following what I saw was the flight path of that bird. I let him work it. He went about 75 to 100 yards to a big ole Hemlock tree, stopped and went on point, I worked around the tree for a few minutes, nothing, released him he goes to the tree puts his feet on the trunk of the tree and looks straight up. I can't see anything, as I worke around the tree, I was throughing stuff up there. Nothing. So I release him, he makes a circle around the tree and goes back on point looking up in the tree. A couple more attempts to move the bird then I gave up figuring the bird must have flew through the tree or something. As I heel him off the "bleep" bird flys out. :roll: Always trust your dog.

The scent at an area the bird moved from has less scent than it had and there will be fresh scent where it is walking. There is no arguing that. You can see this anytime a dog tracks a bird, either a Ruff, Pheasant, woodcock. It is proven every hunting day.

A fresh killed bird leaves more scent, blood, adrenilne, and glandular. They smell different than a live healthy bird. There is scent in the air from the dead bird before it falls to is landing.

Now given all that I wrote, I probably mis read everything in these posts or missed the points. So take it for what it is worth.
Rick

[A/C Guy]

A dog can scent a flushed bird trail. ....

I too have seen our dogs do that. A few weeks ago I flushed a quail while the dogs were working a covey 40 yards away. I bumped him as I was walking towards the dogs. I shot him, called Princess to come find him, she ran to me and as she crossed the path of my shot, she immediately turned toward the spot in the air where I had shot the bird. She followed the scent of the shot (burned powder) until she found the scent of the quail. I was impressed with her intelligence to relate the smell of the gun powder with the direction of the shot bird.

Always trust your dog and never stop learning from them. They can teach us a lot.

A fresh killed bird leaves more scent, blood, adrenilne, and glandular. They smell different than a live healthy bird. There is scent in the air from the dead bird before it falls to is landing....

Exactly correct and well written.

[BigShooter]

We are talking about similar things but excluding the crucial discussion of varying conditions. There are any number of circumstances where there are poor to virtually no air scent cones, especially when a dog is brought to retrieve a dead bird in thick cover some length of time after the fall.

I've provided this reference before but here's a pretty good discussion of dogs & bird scent: http://www.pineyrunkennel.com/scent_article.htm