Gun Dog Forum

I'm currently reading Point by James Spencer and in the chapter on force training to retrieve, he states that this is accomplished with a dog that is between 12 and 24 months depending upon maturity. This got me to thinking about what might be considered a reasonable level of expectations for this upcoming bird season in the fall.

My setter will be 10 1/2 months old the day the upland bird season begins here in Southern New England. I have no illusions that I'll have anything close to a finished dog by that time. Rather, I'm expecting this season to be a continuation of my pup's training with my gun club stocking the pheasants for me. Hopefully, he'll be ready to work birds that are not in release traps. (I do have a couple of places to search out wild grouse and woodcock but most of my dog's hunting will be on stocked pheasants).

I plan on training all spring and summer and my current belief is that I may expect a young dog that will be under a level of control behaviorally and one that will be fairly staunch by that time. I plan to trap and release pigeons for him as often as I can. I'm a high school teacher so I'll have good blocks of time during the summer vacation.

Do you experienced folks agree with the author's timeline? Shall I forgo worrying about retrieve training until next year or is it a mistake to fail to establish some basic elements of retrieving while he's still an adolescent?

....and as stated, does a basically controllable dog who points well and holds well sound like an attainable goal for this year?

Boy, I really appreciate this site and how helpful everyone is.

update : I see you are saying he won't be 10 1/2 months till Oct. That changes my comments.

" "I may expect a young dog that will be under a level of control behaviorally and one that will be fairly staunch by that time. ? " Yes maybe - all dogs mature differently.

"Shall I forgo worrying about retrieve training until next year, or is it a mistake to fail to establish some basic elements of retrieving while he's still an adolescent? " Most folk who want a dog to be a good retriever start early in year 1. I'd be starting now. . Suggest you google and have a look at The SMARTWORK PUPPY PROGRAM


"I do have a couple of places to search out wild grouse and woodcock ." Provide this opportunity as much as you can. A wild bird is very different from a planted bird and pup will learn plenty.

Oh he's just a pup born Dec 3rd....he'll be 10 1/2 months the third Saturday in October when our season opens.

He responds very well to my NO! and will stop doing what he isn't supposed to for the most part, stolen napkins and tissues excepted of course!

I'll look into that Smartwork program, thanks.

Let the dog hunt and have fun with it,get a season under him,train him to be steady to wing,and force fetch train if needed after,but before he is two years old,I recommend a professional to force fetch train as it can be hard on the dog and the trainer and you can mess a dog up as well.Setters also generally take a little longer to force train than other breeds.but on point some of the most stylish.have fun with him and good luck!

Misread your post so corrected my comments above. Highly unlikely he will be staunch on wild pheasant in October , but you'll have a good time.

you can play retrieve with a dog that young. but the dogs to young to force anything. keep it fun formal training will come later. you are on the right track your a teacher don't expect first grader to do six grade work

Very true , which is why the "Smart work puppy program " was recommended.

I dont force break pointing dogs until after their second season, making them usually around 18 to 24 months.

Thanks everyone...I'll work on just getting him to lock up as solid as possible and just read where he is on any natural retrieving instinct he may show for this year.

I run my puppies as much as possible in as many different places as possible and get them as many bird contacts as possible. I let them tell me when they are ready to be broke. When the pup is consistently pointing and holding and maybe letting me get in front a little, he is telling me that he is ready. I start some formal yard work and get him whoa broke and then go back to birds. I can't help you a lot with retrieving as I don't shoot a lot of birds and don't work much with retrieving.

my pups first season was at 6 months.
all we did was chase and find birds and continued gun introduction.

every time a bird was found I fired a shot ,if the bird was pointed I shot the bird.
in the end I didn't shoot many bird but didn't expect to.
the birds I did shoot were towards the end of the season.

if you are farther ahead and are already shooting training birds over him before the season,
all I can say is go easy on him
theres a big difference between hunting and training ,the birds act much different and the dog needs time to adjust.
think of training as learning the rules of the game and hunting as playing the game.
give him time , let the birds teach him and stay consistent

Think of training as learning the rules and ....
Great advice THANKS

Well aside from my on-going quest to trap some pigeons, things seem to be right on track.

1) I have spent countless hours with this young setter and he's absolutely crazy about me. Will not let me leave the room without trying to follow. He got sick in the pick up truck as a youngster but after multiple short drives and stops, he's fine now at 4 1/2 months. He's learning that the truck means fun.

2) We go on walks daily. Sometimes off my own property and sometimes to other destinations. He's met lots of people and a number of dogs although he has no interest in being physical with them and is frightened by aggressive dogs. I'm now being careful to control all of his dog interactions. He never leaves me when we walk. Oh yeah, puppy crack. Well, dehydrated chicken actually but we call it puppy crack. He goes crazy for that stuff so I've been whistling and treating, whistling and treating for weeks. It is now a very rare occurrence that my whistle doesn't bring him running to my side. He's naturally great on a leash and doesn't pull.

3) I've avoided any string games with wings and feathers per the advice I read here. This guy has been completely disinterested in "bleep" birds even in a feeder right out the window but as of late, he's really begun hunting the robins in the back property. For a couple of weeks now, he'll enter the mowed area and stand until he spots a robin hopping along. He'll sneak in a ways, point and lock for a pretty decent amount of time before he breaks and chases. He spends a good deal of time circling around where they disappeared to. That's been fun to watch.

4) Haven't done any gunning yet but he's gradually gotten used to loud sounds. It first I'd let a door slam, drop a tailgate a little loud and such. He's been fine all along. Started my Harley with him in the house at first but now he's fine with it. I wouldn't start it when he's close to it.


He's just a little angel so far. When I do get some pigeons, I'll continue with the next stuff.

Do you mind me asking what bloodlines your setter is from? Because Ryman Setters and
Long Gone Setters may very well both be Setters, but I can assure you what you can expect
out of each bloodline at 10.5 months should be very different.

Also, you need not worry about many wild pheasant surviving the winter we just had here in
New England....... if there is even such a thing as a wild pheasant here in New England.

Get your dog out on wild birds- woodcock & grouse, as much as possible. They will teach your dog
more about hunting/pointing birds in a week than any throw down, pen-raised phez will teach them
in an entire season.

If your dog points the bird (at least stops momentarily), then for a first year dog it is okay to shoot the bird
once it is up. If there is no stop & your dog is just charging in & acting like a flusher- you may be creating
problems by shooting at/dropping birds put in the air in this manner.

Try to get your dog to stop (I take it you are using "whoa"), with the goal this season of being able to break the plane
between your dog and the bird being pointed before your dog charges in. If you can do that, consider yourself lucky
and your dog well on his way. But get in the Grouse/Woodcock covers if at all possible as much as possible.

Where in western MA are you?

Rob

Every dog is different and setters many times mature slower than other dogs, so you have to take each one as an individual. That being said, I'd hunt the socks off him next fall and when you're done, force him. 10-12 months is a great edge to force break a dog.

For now, I'd take him for a ton of long walks in the field.
Expose him to a lot of birds.
Get him going in water when it is WARM.
Obedience train him once he turns 7-10 months.
Teach him NO now.
Teach him HERE now. If he stops doing things when you yell NO, and comes when he'sscalled, he is huntable.
You can teach him whoa, but HERE and NO are more important.
Let him have fun, discipline him sparingly, expose him to everything.

Rob, my pup's a Llewellin that I got from Kyle Warren at Paint River Llewellins. He got the parents from Laurel Mt Llewellins in the UP. I'm near Great Barrington.

gonehuntin' I'm pretty much on track with all of that...thanks.

Depends on the dog and the training method. If inside dog, then use a ball and roll it down the hallway, pup on a long leash. Pup gets ball you gently pull him to get him started your way, not a heavy pull just a small amount of pressure. Until he does it all by himself, you will have a better chance of getting a bird dog retriever this way. I have had 10 month old pups fetch to my hand opening day using this method. On wild birds. I don't FF unless it has to be, and only after they grow up.

NEhomer, looks like we're in about the same boat! I have a Llewellin female from Jornada Setters in NM. She was born December 5. I'll be interested to see your progress!

Terrific! My guy was born on Dec 3rd~

They're sure teenagers now huh? Mine is so well behaved and sweet I'm amazed. Maybe it was just that my Brittany was a total jerk but Whip does none of her behaviors....running off.....chewing stuff....pooping on the walk.....getting into garbage.....getting up onto counters and tables....pulling hard at the leash....etc. Loved her dearly but boy is this one a whole lot easier.

This is my pup Tuck on his first ever hunting trip. Took him down to Tx this Feb.

He let me walk out in front and flush the birds, He backed and some elementary retrieving.

You can see him at the start of this video on point, and the GSP pup runs right past him, and he stays solid. We ended up circling back to him.
I also always get a kick out of seeing what happens with young dogs around the first few dead birds. A lot of the time they point them again.

Pups develop at different speeds. Tuck has developed about average or a little faster than the setters I have had.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5JMGN9JPAo

One of my setters at 10 months - steady to flush and shot, on planted birds.

Certainly nothing to do with my great training skills. Just a dog who figured out early that she'd better hold her position or that bird would be gone, and good breeding ( Sire: 5XCH Shady Hills Billy).

It all depends on the dog as to what to expect, and how fast to move training along.

( I didn't know anything about e collars then. I tied some colored ribbons around her collar so I could find her. LOL )

NEhomer wrote:Terrific! My guy was born on Dec 3rd~

They're sure teenagers now huh? Mine is so well behaved and sweet I'm amazed. Maybe it was just that my Brittany was a total jerk but Whip does none of her behaviors....running off.....chewing stuff....pooping on the walk.....getting into garbage.....getting up onto counters and tables....pulling hard at the leash....etc. Loved her dearly but boy is this one a whole lot easier.

Yes, they sure are in the teen stage! My experience has been the same. She had a little regression last week with the housebreaking, which we chalked up to teething, but she has otherwise been a dream in the house. I've got high hopes for her!

Sounds like you are on the right track. Make retrieving fun for him at this age. As soon as he loses interest, move on to something else. When he brings you anything under any circumstances and I mean anything, give him lots of praise. I have a 2 year old setter that I started this way. I worked on force fetch with her at a year and half. She resigned herself to holding things dangling out of her mouth by 1 tooth. Not happy. She has turned into a good retriever now because of her natural drive. The light came on and now she knows she is a critical part of the team in the field. So I would say the crucial experience for your pup would be to get out a lot this fall and learn about birds. It must be nothing but good times this first season. That close bond you have developed will go a long way in retrieving to you in the future.

Thanks Leeza....don't know why I didn't see your post before~

Yesterday was Whip's first exposure to pigeons. I placed one in a small metal dog crate and lead him to it. He pointed from some distance as he's been doing with the robins and doves but then broke of course. He went absolutely crazy about it circling the cage and barking and just having the time of his life. I left him for a bit but eventually had to lead him away with a ton of praise. Never worried that he'd be into birds but wow, he would have kept at it till he passed out.

Then later I tried a pigeon pole. Unless I'm missing something, I think my guy at 5 1/2 months is a little too old to get much out of that. Sure, he points briefly but then charges the captive bird and has to be hauled away by his checkcord. If sparking interest was an issue, it might be of more use.

So those experiences were fun just to see his reaction but at this point, I'll just plant them in the launcher for him.

NEHomer -

This is about where I depart from a lot of trainers. Once I KNOW that the pup is bird crazy, I do not show the pup too awful many birds, but work on the obedience aspect in the yard instead. I am a big fan of yard work and instilling trained and conditioned responses in highly controlled situations.

Please understand that I currently field trial my dogs, so I need them to lock up on or near fist scent, and stand their birds solidly with the highest possible style through flush, shot and recovery. You may not need that level of finish, so you may not need to be as persnickety with the details as I am.

One of the drills I do, every day, morning and night, is a heel/whoa drill(after the manner of Paul Long), except that I use a pigging string as a substitute for the Smith wonder lead. I typically start this drill when the pup is about 4 months old and continue with it until well after the dog is steady to wing and shot. The drill is done in compete silence, with the only cues being the lead and my movement. Once the dog is heeling to me and stopping when I stop, I will introduce the upraised hand "stop" signal, and drop the lead and begin to walk out in front of the pup. I will reposition the pup if they move and then resume the normal heel/whoa drill, then do the "stop' signal again. Usually a dog will pick up what I am asking it to do very quickly.

I do run the dog in fields, for exercise, for fun and for patterning, but they are birdless fields, because I want to control any game bird contacts.

As you may gather, I am not a huge fan of letting a dog chase. That is just something else I will have to train out of a dog and that means more pressure.

More pressure often means less style or less independence or less desire, but it is ALWAYS less, never more, and the goal of my training is to shape the dog's behavior and response with as little pressure as possible, thereby taking as little as I can away from the talents and abilities that were put in there by God and the breeder.

I will extend this drill and simulate flushing and introduce the prong collar(which is what I use for steadying to wong and shot). You could instead introduce the e-collar or pinch collar, or both or all three if you wish. Every few weeks I will take the dog into the field, let it run dragging a long checkcord and have a bird in a remote launcher. I will pop the bird when the dog is in the general area and see what the dog does. if the dog chases, and they almost always do the first few times, I will use that opportunity to fire a shot. Gunfire means birds.

Eventually, with a combination of yardwork training and free flying pigeons, the dog will hesitate and watch the bird fly off. it may only hesitate for a couple seconds, but that is enough to tell me the dog is ready for steadiness training.

It is difficult to explain fully, because how I proceed is, in large part, dictated by how the dog responds, but the above is, in general, how I move forward. I do as much of my training silently, as is possible.

RayG

I agree with you Ray, introduce them to birds and then forget them while you teach your pup some manners and do a lot of socializing. Then when six or 8 months old start the bird training. I don't like to put a time schedule on it as every pup is different but the main point is you have a puppy when you buy it and it will become a bird dog puppy in a few months. But use those early times to teach what ever you feel is necessary to fit into your household.

Ezzy

For now, the first thing I'd do is forget preserve pheasant's this year. I'd forget all pen raised birds this year. You mention you have wild grouse, take it there! The difference in what a wild bird and a pen raised bird are gonna teach are terrific! On top of that is the problem of perhaps a pen raised pheasant slapping the tar out of your pup with negative result's. You need to keep in mind this is still a puppy and it will still be one when hunting season start's. Pen raised pheasant's are not for your pup, they are for you, leave them alone this year. You want to hunt them, leave your pup at home.

My Bodie pointed the first bird he ever came across, about 12 weeks. He also backed the first opertunity he ever had. He started really fast, they don't all do that! My Stormy never paid attention to any bird until he was about 11 mos old. He did start backing on his own. You have a puppy, keep that in mind and let him be a puppy. When any dog start's on birds is when they are supposed to, not when we say. With the way he's getting on pigeons, beg, borrow or steal a set of remote launcher's. Leave that pigeon pole alone. In theory the pigeon pole sound's great but in practice your always gonna have to have physical control of the pup. At this point you want a bird that will not let the pup catch it; that's pigeon's and remote traps at which time you need to think like a wild bird rather than a trainer.

Skip the preserve season and do the wild bird season. You'll find that after X number of wild bird's you'll be able to do pheasant's. But it won't take many pen raised pheasant's and they will set your dog back! If they were at least quail, almost the same result would be had, puppy learns it can catch birds. One saving grace with quail is I've never heard of a quail beating up a dog to where to dog will either not retrieve anymore or just simply blink the live bird. Nice looking pup in the avatar, that it? "bleep" nice looking pup, don't rush him and you';ll have a dog long before you will if you rush him.

My dog's prey drive is through the ceiling. I've been able to release a few pigeons for him and he's nuts about that but what I'm curious about is his constant hunting of the robins in my very large yards. He'll point from 50+ft away and then break and stop and break and stop and then break and chase. Of course he doesn't come close to catching them. So is he learning to beak point or is he learning the futility of breaking point? Not sure exactly but it's not as if I can police the yard.

He's still chasing butterflies and he points the rhododendron because it's buzzing with bumble bees.

Nothing to worry about , but don't you get involved in it by saying anything.

(That is a great book you mentioned in your first post. It was my first bird dog training read , 25 years ago. )

Well now that we're a few weeks into the season, I can proudly say that I indeed have the hunting buddy I was hoping for. Whip is a pleasure to be with in the field and adjusts his range perfectly. He's very staunch and I credit that with my good fortune of having a good population of woodcock surrounding my home. Most of the summer and into the fall here, I needed to do nothing more than to strap on the old Alpha 100 and let him roam the hundreds of acres that surround my home. Throughout September I cut firewood while keeping tabs on him. He'd regularly spend a full 10 minutes on point. Sometimes I'd seek him out and we'd flush the bird but mostly, I let my feathered friends do the training for me.

He's still a pup and finding downed birds has been his one fault. He get's so excited that he runs right over them sometimes and I have to stand there and give him extra time. I'm sure he'll mature and figure that out. He also isn't retrieving but that'll be next summer's main training.

Very happy bird hunter here in Western MA~