Continuing Education...a field trial thread

Post Reply
User avatar
Chukar12
GDF Junkie
Posts: 2051
Joined: Tue May 18, 2010 5:20 pm
Location: Northern California

Continuing Education...a field trial thread

Post by Chukar12 » Mon Jan 09, 2012 5:44 pm

I feel like I have a reasonable handle on what makes a hunting dog better year after year. Most of my training for hunting dogs after I broke them they did themselves. They improve ground application, hunt dead better, etc...mostly just from the reps I gave them to learn on their own...I hunt my field trial dogs, so they get the same benefit BUT...do professionals or the more experienced do more? Aside from conditioning and nutrition are you just fixing obvious holes (or trying) in dogs that are broke and 3,4 and 5 years old?

User avatar
dan v
Rank: 5X Champion
Posts: 1166
Joined: Mon Aug 06, 2007 12:33 pm
Location: Central MN

Re: Continuing Education...a field trial thread

Post by dan v » Mon Jan 09, 2012 6:19 pm

Restate the question more clearly please 8)
Dan

User avatar
Chukar12
GDF Junkie
Posts: 2051
Joined: Tue May 18, 2010 5:20 pm
Location: Northern California

Re: Continuing Education...a field trial thread

Post by Chukar12 » Mon Jan 09, 2012 6:23 pm

Restate the question more clearly please
What are you doing with your broke Gordon Setters to make them better?

...and don't be a ....
Image

User avatar
DonF
GDF Junkie
Posts: 4020
Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2011 6:09 pm
Location: Antelope, Ore

Re: Continuing Education...a field trial thread

Post by DonF » Mon Jan 09, 2012 9:15 pm

Every dog I ever trialed I also hunted. The only problem it might have caused was the way pen birds act. So I did a lot of work with pen birds also and letting them run around the dogs. I had one dog, Lefty, so well done, I had him on a back with another dog and the bird went out high toward Lefty. Shot the bird and it fell right between his feet. I mean right between them, I expected a FUBAR but that guy didn't budge and he let the other dog come over and retrieve it.

I think a lot of the extra birds and wild birds were a definate benifit. My wife was handling him in an all age stake and had him on a bird. The bird flushed right at him and he ducked to keep from being hit. Then he swapped ends without any forward movement at all. Judge had her pick him up for moving. I also never ran a dog of my own in any puppy of derby stake. First for me they had to be bird dogs, the rest be "bleep"!

I had an AKC rep at a test I was judging. Had a good talk with him and something he said reall stuck. He told me "if it isn't a bird dog first, it wont eat my grocery's"! You can train a dog but to make a "bird dog" it takes wild birds.
I pity the man that has never been loved by a dog!

slistoe
GDF Junkie
Posts: 3843
Joined: Mon Jun 04, 2007 7:23 pm

Re: Continuing Education...a field trial thread

Post by slistoe » Mon Jan 09, 2012 9:39 pm

Every dog has holes. What you do with one would be different than what you do with another. Getting the dog to handle at a distance without looking like he was being handled at all was a goal I found could always be worked on with my dogs.

Ken Lynch
Rank: Champion
Posts: 332
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2005 10:35 am
Location: Mid-Hudson Valley

Re: Continuing Education...a field trial thread

Post by Ken Lynch » Mon Jan 09, 2012 9:55 pm

Education is a never ending process. Do not let your lack of imagination be the cause of the dog to stop learning. We have all seen or heard of the unexpected happen during an event. Most times people say that will never happen again. But some say that is just another thing to work into the training schedule.
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
Groucho Marx

User avatar
DGFavor
GDF Junkie
Posts: 1949
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:55 am
Location: Pocatello, ID

Re: Continuing Education...a field trial thread

Post by DGFavor » Mon Jan 09, 2012 10:35 pm

do professionals or the more experienced do more?
Yer asking us?? :lol: :lol:

User avatar
Chukar12
GDF Junkie
Posts: 2051
Joined: Tue May 18, 2010 5:20 pm
Location: Northern California

Re: Continuing Education...a field trial thread

Post by Chukar12 » Mon Jan 09, 2012 10:52 pm

Yes Doug...you...especially you just forget it I will come up. You are over on Briar aren't you? You gotta pool over there ??

User avatar
DGFavor
GDF Junkie
Posts: 1949
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:55 am
Location: Pocatello, ID

Re: Continuing Education...a field trial thread

Post by DGFavor » Mon Jan 09, 2012 11:23 pm

Not on Briar anymore, moved up on to the western branch of the southern fork of Northeast Crick. Nice place, obviously don't need a pool with the afternoon shade we get unlike the folks over on the eastern branch...

Anyhoo, if ya' really wanna know, regarding the dogs I'm a simple dude. Lifelong plan for birddogs at the Favor house is good food, plenty of water, lotsa birds at lotsa places, "life is good" between 10 & 2, Dan Hoke/Dunfur Kennel then point/flush/shoot/move on...point/flush/shoot/move on...point/flush/shoot/move on...point/flush/shoot/move on - making doing it right a habit is much easier than trying to prep for all the ways they can do it wrong.

User avatar
dan v
Rank: 5X Champion
Posts: 1166
Joined: Mon Aug 06, 2007 12:33 pm
Location: Central MN

Re: Continuing Education...a field trial thread

Post by dan v » Tue Jan 10, 2012 7:25 am

Chukar12 wrote:
Restate the question more clearly please
What are you doing with your broke Gordon Setters to make them better?

...and don't be a ....
A simple question for a simple mind. What to do, oh what to do. As said earlier it depends on the dog, my older male....instill in him that the suns rises and sets outta my rump. So he rides around in the truck, we work some birds on foot, hunt him, road him, keep him 10/2, go big - but come with. I've run him in the woods for ruffs and had fun with that. But I think the one thing that will make him better is the sunrise/sunset thing.
Dan

User avatar
Wagonmaster
GDF Junkie
Posts: 3372
Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2005 10:22 am
Location: Minneapolis, MN

Re: Continuing Education...a field trial thread

Post by Wagonmaster » Wed Jan 11, 2012 2:26 pm

What I enjoy most is the things they figure out for themselves starting somewhere between 4 and 6 years of age, if they are hunted every year. Had a GWP years ago that figured out if he trailed a running rooster he would go right up the tailpipe and it would go out, so he would come offwind of the bird and run the track from 30 yards or so offwind. Every once in awhile he would go upwind just to make sure the rooster was still there. Eventually he would pin them, and sometimes he would manage to get ahead of them and pin them back against the hunters. Never taught him that, he just figured it out.

Had a female GSP that was a great bird finder but so so at retrieving. I would carry a check cord in my pocket so if we had a downed bird we could restrain her to the area where it was believed to be, and after that she never lost one. That gave her the idea that retrieving was kinda fun. So one day we were driving back to camp, having filled our limit, and drove by an older guy obviously looking for a downed bird on the edge of a slough. I asked if the dog could help and he said sure, so I brought the dog on the check cord. That rooster was wingtipped, and had left a blood trail. She picked it up and started tracking through the worst, thickest part of the slough. I had to work really hard to keep the checkcord from tangling. She tracked it about 100 yards through the slough to the far edge, which was a hay field. She picked up speed along the hayfield and I just let the rope go. She tracked it out to the ditch next to the road, and then picked up speed with her nose to the ground. I got out there and could see the rooster huddled down low, about 150 yards ahead of her, and running full speed in the short grass. I began to jog after her. Up ahead about 300 yards was a T in the road, and straight ahead over the intersecting road was a Federal wildlife management area. Bird and dog were headed for that. About that time the guy had gotten into his car, drove up next to me, and asked if I wanted to jump in. I just signaled he should drive like a bat out of you know where down to that T, which he did. Before he got there I saw the dog go up over the intersecting road and disappear into the WMA. When he got there, up she came with that bird. We measured it on the odometer at a quarter mile, on a bird she had not seen fall, we weren't there.


A year later she repeated the feat, another quarter mile track and retrieve on a bird shot when she was not there.

Never taught her that, although you can teach tracking I never worked on it with her. From a mediocre retriever, she learned for herself, and became one of the best bird dogs I have ever had. The last few years I had her, we never lost a bird.

Yes, you always want to keep working with them, and in particular hunting with them, and working on their "holes," but what is most interesting is what they learn themselves, and what they teach you, if you will just listen and watch.

Post Reply