Training routine

[fdsjr]

To get young puppies in shape for a lifetime of a hunting... what is your training routine?? If you dont wanna share, please just give some tips about making a schedule or training puppies in general. THANKS in advance!

[dhondtm]

There is no recipe for getting in shape or training them. I always laugh when I see the on Day 3 do this, Day 4 do this. Every dog is different and you have to adapt to them.

[Ryan]

The key is repetition and not stopping the training once you start. WIth a green pup like yours 20 min a day will be lots. Usually he will get bored and once you see that stop immediatly and start playing with him. Make the lessons interesting and fun for both you and your dog.

[Greg Jennings]

There is a simple macro-plan that is pretty safe. There are three steps:

1. Get your pup firmly established on birds. Get him bird crazy. Use wild birds if possible, strong pigeons in launchers if not. Avoid pen-raised quail.

Also begin taking walks with your pup around the edges of mowed fields. Let it explore its world and learn to go with you. Put duct tape over your mouth if you have to.

You don't want tall weeds or briars in the pup's face. You want this to be as happy as possible. Fun, fun, fun. Just a romp around the edge of the park.

The walk should be long enough that pup still wants more.

Janet's "Training for Silent Hunting...." has a good pup introduction program. It's a different approach, but Perfection Kennels "Perfect Start" does as well.

2. After your pup is bird crazy, pull it off birds till it is around a year old. About 8-14 months is usually the range that I hear. It varies, but unless you have a lot of experience reading dogs, it's better to be very conservative.

In this period, do not ignore your pup. Continue the walks and gradually lengthen them as the pup grows. Remember: Always leave pup wanting more.

There are tons of other things that can be done in this period. Introduction to water, sufficient obedience to be good in the house, etc.

Don't ignore pup, but don't take him out at 4-5 months and start pressuring him to do adult work, either.

Pups look adult far before their minds are. The have the attention span of a gnat.

3. When the pup is about a year old, start watching for signs that its ready to begin more formal training.

Once you enter into this period, continue training till the pup reaches the level of staunchness that you desire...then go a couple more months before you give pup much of a chance to screw up.

Before you get there, don't even worry about what "formal training" means. Just have fun with your pup.

Best,

[Kevin]

Greg,

Curious, are you taking the pup off birds completely? For how long? What is accomplished by doing this?

Would this mean not taking a pup hunting it's first season around 8-9 months old.(Wild birds)

Not being a wise guy, just interested in your methods.

[Ryan]

I would think you would want your dog on birds as much as possible would you not? Why are you taking him off the bird? What is accomplished by this?

[Greg Jennings]

Two things drive what I'm advocating...

1. Dog is intended for a competition format where staunchness is required.

2. There is no access to wild birds.

Under those restrictions, yes, I'm advocating pulling the dog more or less completely off birds during the maturation period.

Whatever you do, be careful around those dang pen-raised quail. The dog looses its point because it knows dang well that it can catch them.

Keep in mind that I'm just an enthusiastic amateur. My thoughts about the process are constantly evolving. They're based on 4 things:

1. My observations of my grandfather and father training hunting dogs when I was a child. "Let the birds train the dog".

2. What I've learned since returning to pointing dogs from the obedience and retriever games. A lot of that has been influenced by the West/Gibbons method. A critical point here was the idea of building the dog's independence and drive.

3. An on-going learning relationship with a couple of folks that shall remain nameless because I don't want my stupidities to stain their accomplishments.

4. My engineering background and the idea of maximum reward with minimum risk.

Best regards,

[Maurice]

IMO Greg's reason are right on for pulling a dog off of pen birds until it is ready to be broke, different deal if you are working on wild birds. I run my pups on libbies until they are big enough and fast enough to chase and catch a pen raised quail, my pointers usually reach that stage between 4 and 6 months old. I will continue to run them but I will not put birds out for them, just work on range and handle. Most of the pointers developed liked this are ready for formal checkcord training at 10 to 12 months old. So many mistakes are made using pen raised birds, bad habits get ingrained very easy with young dogs. Then it takes more time and pressure to bring that dog in line.

Mo

[grant]

So many mistakes are made using pen raised birds, bad habits get ingrained very easy with young dogs. Then it takes more time and pressure to bring that dog in line.

Mo

Man have I been there! =)

[Grey Ghost]

Check out the book "How to Help Gun Dogs Train Themselves" by Joan Bailey. It's not so much a road map, but a philosophy. Bailey doesn't discuss formal training at all (some rudimentary obedience), but lays out what needs to be done prior to formal training. She say's no formal training for the first year. I imagine there are others that would argue with that, but for the first few months anyway...

It's also a pretty quick read.

[Wagonmaster]

I was going to reply to Greg's post and say no way, don't pull them off birds. But when I thought about it, that is exactly what I have done with many dogs. Here is why.

The majority of my dogs have been spring pups. Whether they have been my own breeding or pups I have purchased, they are put on birds early and often. Hunting season around here is Sept. 1 to Jan. 1 approx. They are usually in the 6 month range when the season starts, and we hunt them alot. We have them prepared for it, including accustomed to gunshot. It is also our major opportunity to get them into wild birds. Usually, at least with the type of dog I run, they are really bird crazy by the end of the season, and running very big.

The horseback FT dogs go to a pro at around this point. The pro will take them to a winter camp and run them off horseback. He will keep putting them into birds. With a horse, he can keep up with them.

But with the hunting dogs, I am usually saying to myself that I better start to get a handle on the dog over the winter or I will not be able to control it on foot the following year. Actually had one dog at this point get completely lost on the prairies for two and a half days at this age, so we are not talking here about dogs that have had just a couple of birds and are just leaving the handler's side. We are talking about dogs that often are on the brink of running over the next prairie hill a section or so away, and dogs that are starting to run bigger and ranker when they think you want to put them in the car, cause they want another bird. It is time to put a cork in the bottle if you want to hunt them.

Winter is long and deep around here. Can't usually keep pen birds. Can't keep the water flowing, and too cold for birds like quail. Better have the quail pen emptied out by end of October. Too much snow to run the dog until Feb. at a minimum, and that would be a warm winter and we would be running in heavy snow, usually looking for pheas. in swamps. So from about the 9-12 month point there is no opportunity to put them on birds. I usually use this time to begin obedience. Now, we are not doing any "contest of wills" training at this point. No FF, no breaking, but I do the teaching part of some commands. By teaching I mean step by step, showing the dog what the command is, so later, I know they know what I want them to do. I usually only train one or two at a time, not being a pro. So at this point I take them to the pet store with me to shop, have them drive around in the car, etc. We are bonding. By spring, they are a year, and I can begin to put a handle on them and run them on birds again. Precocious dogs we may break at this point. They would be about 1 year 3 mo's to 1 1/2, so an ok time to do it if done with soft hands. Dogs not so precocious we would work to staunch up over the summer.

So I would not put a rule on it, and say stop with birds at precisely "x" months, and start doing obedience at "y" months, and staunch them at "z" months. It is more a matter of watching the dog's progress, and knowing when it is time to take the next step, and using the season's to best advantage. But in my case, it works out pretty close to Greg's schedule. I just would not engineer it. That way lies the path to the dark side of the force. (Wrong thing at the wrong time just because it is on the schedule.) I would watch the dog's progress and let the dog tell me when it is time.

[Kevin]

Good points,

Greg for a trial dog I guess your right, especially a softer dog. I will say that I agree that pen raised quail are absolute garbage...I've only used them once and never again. Chuckers seem to fly good, although IMO pigeons are the best to train with.

Have to drive a couple hours to get into wild birds myself, but it's worth it.

So I guess if you had better access to wild birds you would continue to expose the dog to them and let the birds teach the dog.

[snips]

Kevin, I do the same thing with young dogs, if I had access to wild birds it would be diferent. We can get some pretty good pen birds here tho that for quite a few months serve a young dog well. I will even get some coveyed bird here for awhile before hawks get them, and they will get up pretty darn good. There is a point tho that a young dog, 7-10 months old, will figure out that running hard enough is enough to catch a pen bird. Thats not what I want them to figure out, as soon as I see this start I will usually put the dog out on launchers a few times to back them off, then let them grow up some before getting trained.

[Ryan]

So one should pull his dog off pen birds but can leave them on wild birds then?? I am with the reason "the birds will train the dog"

[Greg Jennings]

So one should pull his dog off pen birds but can leave them on wild birds then?? I am with the reason "the birds will train the dog"

Wild birds are great. There are still things to look out for, however.

Keep in mind that competition or tests have rules that are often different from wild bird hunting.

Best,

[Wagonmaster]

I think what you need to do is assess what you have at any given time, and what you want. If you bought the dog at 6 months and it had not seen birds, or if it is dependent and not wild about birds, you don't all of a sudden say to yourself "The dog is 8 months old today, pull it off pen raised birds." Or "pull it off birds entirely." If the dog has seen plenty of birds, you want a foot hunting dog, and it is getting a little rank, then 8 or 9 months might be a good time to do some obedience to gain some control. Maybe a good time to take a little vacation from making the dog bird crazy. If you have been working the dog on nothing but pen raised birds, and it has figured out it can catch them all, then you want to do something else for awhile, like start using a check cord or running on wild birds if available, even if the dog is only six months old, rather than wait until it is 8 or 9, by which time it has caught so many it is absolutely sure it can catch any and all forms of pen raised birds. If you want to build an all age horseback dog, and the dog is rank and bird crazy, you maybe keep running it on birds for awhile at 8 or 9 months, but look for wild birds so it is not catching any, because you want that big race and all the style in the world. Even a horseback dog, though, at some point, needs someone to put a handle on it.

Greg's timetable is pretty much right when you have been developing the dog from the beginning; most of the time, that is a good age to start working on control - if we are talking about a foot hunting gun dog. But the next poster will ask "I just bought my dog, it is 8 months old, it hasn't been introduced to birds yet, I should wait to do that another 4 months, right?" Wrong. The development that is built into Greg's schedule is not there. We are starting at a different point with that dog. "The right time" may partly be age, but it is also the stage of the dog's development along the path, and where you want the path to lead, grasshopper.

[Greg Jennings]

The context of my posts is fsdjr's Vizsla pup and that it's his first dog.

There are all sorts of variations on the theme, but I wanted to keep things simple for him.

Best,

Greg

[Wagonmaster]

I thought it was a good, inciteful post, could just see the next post coming. "My dog is 8 months old and..."

[Greg Jennings]

I understand!

So, what would a guy have to do to get you to point him to some hunting up in the frozen north?

I'm up to my ears with a move to the Dayton, OH area and want to get a handle on the cool hunting trips within a day's drive.

Best regards,

[Wagonmaster]

How much are you worth?

Seriously, if you are thinking ruffed grouse, which is about all we have left in Minn., save your sheckels and come up in a couple of years. We are at the bottom of the cycle, which runs ten years. Everyone was hoping this year would be an uptick, because we are due, but the drumming counts came out a couple of weeks ago and they were dead flat from last year, which was pretty bad. When we are up, its great, when we are down, it is alot of work for a few flushes and maybe one or two birds bagged per day in the early part of the season. After that it gets tougher. Minn. does not have much pheas. hunting left, although it is there if you know where to find it, but not worth making a trip for.

If you are thinking prairie birds, you have to go to the middle to western dakotas, mont., ks or neb for that, or up to Canada. But getting a gun across into Canada is a major hassle, and we have not been up there in a few years. Sharps and pheas. are good in the dakotas though. Droves of trainers headed out there between Jul. 1 and 15.

[MNGSP]

Minn. does not have much pheas. hunting left, although it is there if you know where to find it, but not worth making a trip for.

I don't know.....I find pheasants every time I go out.

Ruffed grouse are still my favorite even though they are in a lull right now.

Jon

[Greg Jennings]

John,

Thank you for the advice there. I'm new to OH and don't know which way is up yet.

Before the move came up, I had already planned a trip to eastern MT to hunt sharptail. That should be interesting. I'm just a little nervous about having to wait till mid-August for the BMA list to come out.

If I can now find a couple of more day trips (the MT deal amounts to 1.5 weeks), I'll be doing well for the first year.

Other than that, I hope to be busy campaigning the pup in AKC derby events this year.

Best regards,

[Wagonmaster]

Derby is great! Just let em roll. Not much responsibility except to keep em on the grounds, and watch em like a hawk for bird work. Can be pretty brief at that age, with another derby on the ground motoring in when you do get a point.

Have been watching the weather statistics and it looks as though eastern MT - western ND has been pretty fair this spring, during the hatch. A couple of big storms may have affected some areas, but overall it has looked good. The area I have been hearing about for the last couple years taht is supposed to be good for pheas, although I have not hunted it, is SE ND, right across the MN border.

[NDBDHunter]

I'm west of the Grand Forks about 40 miles and there's plenty of sharptails here. The sharptail count was down a little for this spring (Less than 10% I believe) and we have had some storms, but they are short in duration (It's those long cold wet periods that get the birds, and it's been fairly warm) so there's still hope for a good year. With the PLOTS program there's more land than you could hunt in a life time. I can show you around if anyone comes through here.

[Wagonmaster]

NDBD-

Maybe you are the person who posted this on another Board. I think it is a quote from the DNR about the sharptail count.


> Spring Sharp-tailed Grouse Census Tallied
> Preliminary reports from the 2005 spring sharp-tailed grouse census
> indicate a slight decrease in the number of male grouse recorded
> compared to last year.
>
> Statewide, observers counted 5,114 sharptails on spring dancing
> grounds this year compared to 5,465 in 2004, a 6 percent decrease,
> according to Jerry Kobriger, upland game management supervisor for the
> North Dakota Game and Fish Department at "bleep".
>
> More than 700 square miles were censused. Male grouse recorded per
> square mile decreased from 7.3 in 2004 to 6.7 this year.
>
> An indication of the fall season won't be known until mid-August,
> Kobriger said, upon completion of brood surveys.

You are probably very right in your observation that the spring weather will have a great deal to do with what the population is like in the fall. Was cool and wet last year, and the pop. seemed down a little, but then the flowers came out and they were all over the place.

[NDBDHunter]

I read that info off the ND Game and Fish Web site.

But up until I found a sharptail nest in early May (Since then I've stopped running them) my dogs were finding plenty of birds. I hope the weather does straighten up a bit

[Ryan]

U been having bad weather too eh. We have had bad weather for 3 weeks now. Occasionally we get 3 day sunny breaks bu thats it. I am still running Bailey and we find lots of birds it is just harder for her to lock in on them.