one day good the next bad?

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deke
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one day good the next bad?

Post by deke » Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:50 am

This may be a stupid question to some of you on here, but I got a rude awakening this weekend. We started our season on the 29th, released birds, western WA. Dogs came out of the gate hot, shot our limit in under 25 minutes for three guys. Went out the next day at noon, after all the other hunters had been through, shot limits in about 45 minutes, Same thing on Wednesday. Saturday we go out at noon, bag is full before we make it through first field. Now we get to Sunday ( cue villian music) Dogs are acting wierd, Barking in their kennels, fight getting the shock collar on. I finally get them out in the field and we start hunting. Everything is looking decent up till this point. We get halfway through the first field and i notice that the dogs are not hunting, they are just running, I call them back, tell them to get a bird and continue my stroll through the field. We get to the corner of the field with no birds. Odd, but okay i can go with it, maybe their was no birds. We continue to hunt, pretty soon i notice the dogs are not leaving the trail. Now i start to get frustrated, i call back my young dog, we have a little talk and i send him on his way. He takes off into the trees, i hear him busting birds way out of range. old dog is still running down the trail. At this point, im wondering what is going on? I decide that we are going to hunt the cattails back to the parking lot, and end this miserable day. So, i take my two labs, professional cattail hunting LABS and start making my way back to the truck. They are walking in a straight line, one right behind the other :evil: . I watch as both of them walk right by a rooster, It was plain as day sitting a foot away from both of them. I walk up kick the bird up. both of them turn around and watch the bird fly away. I get back to the truck, load the dogs in the truck. Ego bruised and hopes tarnished.

What happened? Can two dogs simutaniouslly have a friggin melt down and forget everything overnight?

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Re: one day good the next bad?

Post by dakotashooter2 » Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:52 am

Bored/tired?

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topher40
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Re: one day good the next bad?

Post by topher40 » Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:59 am

labs..................
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deke
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Re: one day good the next bad?

Post by deke » Mon Oct 08, 2012 12:13 pm

topher yes labs, I will switch to pointers when I see one out hunt my little black guy.

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Chukar12
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Re: one day good the next bad?

Post by Chukar12 » Mon Oct 08, 2012 12:21 pm

Well, either something happened that you missed or...there are conditions like weather at play. Labs do not generally handle heat or still conditions well at all. Scent is a really odd thing and I have seen a pretty substantial difference in the course of the same day and certainly from one to the next.

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deke
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Re: one day good the next bad?

Post by deke » Mon Oct 08, 2012 12:39 pm

Chukar, That was my exact first though, but we have had a wierd fall here, no clouds and no measurable rain for 70 some days, cold in the mornings, no breeze. Same every day out

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Re: one day good the next bad?

Post by Cajun Casey » Mon Oct 08, 2012 1:18 pm

Predator scent, maybe? Released birds might attract them.
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deke
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Re: one day good the next bad?

Post by deke » Mon Oct 08, 2012 6:09 pm

Cajun now your starting to reach as far as i am, i have no idea, usually the yellow dog would just chase a coyote, not forget everything he has ever learned.

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Fester
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Re: one day good the next bad?

Post by Fester » Mon Oct 08, 2012 6:13 pm

I was thinking tired as well
Fester

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Re: one day good the next bad?

Post by Vonzeppelinkennels » Mon Oct 08, 2012 7:39 pm

I would guess tired also,some dogs just quit when there tired & seems to be alot of those are labs.They just don't have the stamina of the pointing breeds when it comes to working the fields.I'm sure there are some exceptions but on the whole not up to it.

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Re: one day good the next bad?

Post by TraditionsGSPs2010 » Mon Oct 08, 2012 9:29 pm

I have seen this with my dogs after hunting hard a couple of days on pen raised birds (guiding). Its almost like they get bored. After a conversation or two they will get their heads in the game but not to same degree as if were hunting wild birds. After a couple of days off, they are back to their old form.

I think the dogs want to be challenged a bit and the pen raised birds are just so dumb! I know how they feel and I really can'y blame them. I almost think I know what Tom Knapp feels like when I come back from SD and then go to a perserve. The "liberated" birds look like they are standing still pointing at the targets on their chests!
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campgsp
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Re: one day good the next bad?

Post by campgsp » Mon Oct 08, 2012 9:43 pm

I agree.they probably got bored. Not only pen raised birds but the same field every time can get old.

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Re: one day good the next bad?

Post by birddogger » Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:40 pm

TraditionsGSPs2010 wrote:I have seen this with my dogs after hunting hard a couple of days on pen raised birds (guiding). Its almost like they get bored. After a conversation or two they will get their heads in the game but not to same degree as if were hunting wild birds. After a couple of days off, they are back to their old form.

I think the dogs want to be challenged a bit and the pen raised birds are just so dumb! I know how they feel and I really can'y blame them. I almost think I know what Tom Knapp feels like when I come back from SD and then go to a perserve. The "liberated" birds look like they are standing still pointing at the targets on their chests!
This was my first thought also.

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deke
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Re: one day good the next bad?

Post by deke » Tue Oct 09, 2012 10:39 am

I could see tired for my yellow lab, not the black one though. Bored however is a very good way to describe what i saw. They looked like they were half-assing their way through the field, hitting the same spots where birds usually are, not hunting up to the spots.

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Re: one day good the next bad?

Post by jczv » Tue Oct 09, 2012 11:03 am

One other poster implied but I can't tell from your posts whether your working the same grounds repeatedly (or at least had been at these last grounds multiple times). I have one dog who gets a 'training ground effect' when we go to the local training area to often. He thinks he can find birds whenever he wants to so he loafs and just checks his 'hot spots'. If he doesn't find anything he assumes there's no birds and stops hunting. Sounds like dogs expected to find birds quickly and when they didn't assumed it was tapped out. If this is the same areas you could have cleaned out a lot of the birds by now. They could have been reacting to scent everywhere on your earlier days as again it sounds like there was lots of birds running around and now the fields area relatively devoid of scent even if there are a few birds. Some dogs seem to be pulled along by lots of scent while others become bigger running and reach further by lack of scent.

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Re: one day good the next bad?

Post by ultracarry » Tue Oct 09, 2012 11:30 am

When my dog was 4-6 months old after I took her out every day and ran her in high cover he under side was so worn and sore she would avoid cover for a few days. Maybe that's it.

Now that she has her head in birds only... I can't stop her every single day I take her out. May want to consider a puppy when I breed her. Might put some drive in the lab when all it does is retrieve birds you shot. :)

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Re: one day good the next bad?

Post by Stoneface » Tue Oct 09, 2012 11:51 am

It sounds to me like it was just a day of bad conditions. If I've decided to take the girls out one day, but when I go out to load up the pickup it is warm and calm I will just concede until the next day and maybe just do some conditioning or something. Sounds lile the heat got to them to me.
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deke
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Re: one day good the next bad?

Post by deke » Tue Oct 09, 2012 12:21 pm

ultra, im looking for a new dog, you put me on your list and i might take you up on that offer.

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