Dilema

unsunghero23 · Post by **unsunghero23** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 6:58 am

I have a question that I wanted some opinions on.

I have an Eng. Pointer that I have broke to steady to wing and shot. I have also force broke the dog to retireve birds. However I have never put the 2 together til last night. I took my dog out into a field with planted pigeons. She pointed, I walked in & kicked around then flushed the bird (I have a launcher) as it flew off I fired the blank pistol and then tossed the frozen bird out in front of her. I then said ok and fetch and she went off after the flying bird, no interest at all in the frozen bird even after I made her come back to where I pitched it. Even after I forced her to pick it up she walked over and fropped it at my feet. The dog has never done anything but work pigeons at this farm (I force-broke in my back yard and surrounding area) so a fellow trainer advised I have conditioned her to only want to work birds when at that location. He recommended I load her up the next couple days and take her to various locations and run her through the retrieving drills then take her back to the pigeons and actually shoot one over her. Does this sound reasonable? He also thought the dog would have retrieved the pigeon had I shot it and not threw the frozen bird. Just for your info after taking the dog home I threw a frozen bird twice and she retrieved perfectly.

Wagonmaster · Post by **Wagonmaster** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 7:11 am

Sounds like your friend is right.

Breaking a dog is very much a step by step process, and you have to take the dog through all the steps.

AHGSP · Post by **AHGSP** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 10:13 am

I'll second your friend and Wagon. Dogs are place oriented, which is why you take them back to the location they break "Whoa" as an example. A friend who professionally trains K-9's does not consider a dog to be completely trusted with commands, until it has performed the commands flawlessly in at least 3 different locations and preferrably more, ie. the training yard, the park, a friends yard, out in a field and then in simulated duty with the new handler.

Bruce

unsunghero23 · Post by **unsunghero23** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:10 pm

I knew dogs were very place oriented. That is why I tried this in a training situation, I just didn't realize she would come "unglued" as bad as she did. It was like she didn't know what the frozen bird was. I am going to work her over the next few days in different locations just with retrieving then try the situation again, but this time I intend on killing the bird as long as she does well. Thanks for everyone's help.

snips · Post by **snips** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:57 pm

I always take a dog to the field they point birds in on a long Flexi-lead and throw several birds to retrieve before shooting birds there. I don`t shoot until they are running out every time without flaw. At that time I will usually plant 3 birds a session and shoot them. Frozen birds are very much different than fresh killed, some dogs don`t like the fresh killed bird in their mouth. The object of doing this is, to have the least amout of trauma when it comes time to point the birds and shoot them.