New to the forum and training

[gwpsage]

Hello everyone. I have a 4 1/2 month old GWP. Sage is a wonderful dog. Today was her first interaction with live birds. She has been retrieving dead birds for a month or so now. With the help of a friend we planted some quail in a training field for Sage to work. She located the first bird pretty quickly. She pointed the bird. The point wasn't intense and was only for about 15 sec then she creeped in on the bird. The bird flushed and the chase was on. She eventually caught the bird and brought it back to me with a little coaxing. These birds weren't very strong flyers. The same scenario played out for the other two birds. My intent was to evaluate her prey drive and introduce her to live birds. So I guess my intent was met. I just don't know where to go from here. Should I work on her pointing or focus on gun conditioning, and just let the rest pan out this bird season that starts Sep 1st. I'm looking forward to hearing your advice.

[bean1031]

First off welcome to the forum, there are lots of smart dog people and good information to be found here! I am not a pointer guy Im a retriever guy so take this for what its worth. I would keep the pup around birds as much as possible and devolope prey drive. Let the puppy be a puppy! You might try some whoe training? (pointer people back me up) Have you done any obedence? And if you are goning to use an e-collar on the dog later in life it would be good to put it on the dog now.

[gwpsage]

Thanks, yes she is obediance trained. She sits, stays, comes, lays down. Comes most of the time. Ha We are working on the Heel. I try to keep everything fun for her. She's got plenty of prey drive. As I found out this morning. No problems picking up the live or dead birds. She loves the water and retrieves from water. Just working on the live birds now.

[Duke82]

I would get her on as many wild birds as you can find or get a launcher and get some stronger flying birds. In my opinion the best way to teach a dog to point does not involve you, that is between the bird and the dog (Higgins).

[Sharon]

I would get her on as many wild birds as you can find or get a launcher and get some stronger flying birds. In my opinion the best way to teach a dog to point does not involve you, that is between the bird and the dog (Higgins).

Excellent post. She needs to find birds that will fly away strongly ( wild birds or strong flying pigeons - not quail.. No more being able to catch them. She needs to learn she can't catch them , then she will start to creep, stop, point longer ( You are saying nothing through all this.)

During all this learning you can condition the dog to the e-collar in prep for use and introduce gun fire in the way outlined in other posts here.

[gwpsage]

Thank you for your comments. I will get her on as many birds as I can. Pigeons will have to do for now. She is used to a beeper collar right now. I stuffed the speaker with cotton and have it on the lowest setting. She is also used to the starter pistol. I will move to a 20 guage from a distance when she's working the pigeons.

[gar-dog]

Now that she has caught a few birds I would put a stop to that. At her age, a couple of times is fine, and probably good for the prey drive. But you don't want to teach her that she should flush, chase, and catch the birds. Are you using a check cord? If you can work her into the birds under your control, when she points drop the check cord and get a foot on it. Try to whoa her and then YOU go in and flush the bird. At 4-5 months though, I wouldn't have too high of expectations and still just focus on happy time in the fields and obedience.

Good luck,
G