Gun Dog Forum

Working on "stop to flush". Wondering what I should be doing in the neighborhood in these scenarios:

-I run the dog in a field many AMs (exercise for me and the dog) on a 10ft leash. She chases sparrows we encounter on the run. I am guessing I should not allow this? Perhaps get a shorter leash?

-I imagine there is no way to stop her chasing sparrows when I exercise her off leash. Hopefully this does not interfere with her formal training.

How old is the dog/pup? Every dog that I have owned grew out of chasing trash on their own as soon as they got serious about their work. When they are young, it is their job to chase anything that flys, as they mature you set the stage for real work, they quickly lose interest when there is real meat to find.

Stop to flush is much later in the progression and done on real birds in a controlled environment, when the dog is ready. It sounds like you may be a ways off still.

I agree with Garrison.

I do not care if my pup chases starlings, meadow larks or any kind of "bleep" birds. They will not catch them and will grow out of it when they are worked on the real thing. i do not allow them to mess with fur of any kind, but they are pointers, not versatiles.

I suggest you work on recall a bit, because it does not really matter if the dog chases trash, because the dog will outgrow it... but it DOES matter if the dog does not break off ad come back when called. Once the dog understands that YOU are not interested in trash birds, its desire to engage them will diminish.

Garrison is also right on when he suggests working on stop to flush under controlled circumstances, especially at first.

RayG

I treat "bleep" birds as a non-event and don't even bother calling the dog off them unless they're going off backwards or too much sideways, or way too close to a road. I think bird dogs chase for fun sometimes and where they don't have game birds "bleep" birds are their fun. Like watching 90 Day Fiance or SEC football - silly but harmless

haha thanks all.

Garrison- she is 10 months

Joe3232 wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 26, 2020 5:09 am

haha thanks all.

Garrison- she is 10 months

Sounds like you have been doing a little homework if you are asking about stop to flush drills, that is good. Let me give you an amateurs perspective who has been in your shoes.

One problem that arises with reading a book or watching a video is taking in all the info at once, conflating things and getting ahead of yourself. It’s kind of like watching a HGTV show where they remodel a house in 30 minutes, everything is beautiful and everyone is happy, and my wife looks at me and says “let’s do that next weekend.” When in actuality there was months of heavy foundational and structural work before the designers could even begin to think about the pretty finishes.

There is no shortcuts in building a house or a dog, if you have faulty foundational work underneath, eventually the finish work either won’t be ready for install or have to be stripped back to the studs again so the underlying problems can be reworked, causing delays that could of been avoided. Deliberate, slow, steady and complete work will get you to the finish line faster. Over months and years, not weekends.

The good news is you are seeking info, you have lots of time and the pup is at a good age to start putting the pieces together. I recommend reading “Training with Mo”. It really helps give you the blueprint or progression in a way that is easy to understand. It’s important to understand why we do A before B and C. Another thing that may be helpful is reading the AKC, and AF performance standards for puppy, derby and broke dog competition, looking at the age requirements for each. Even if you don’t trial or need to develop a dog to this standard, (there are loads of great hunting dogs that are not), it puts perspective on which goals you might want to be working towards, for this season, next season and maybe the one after that.

There are some really experienced folks here, many who are or were pro trainers. They are more than willing to help, but like any teacher, they expect us the students, to have read the chapters and done the homework required. We need to have a solid understanding of the project before we can ask about certain elements of the assignments that are due.

Please don’t take this advice as me saying to not ask questions, it’s quite the contrary. The more I understood the big picture the better the question were and the more useful the help I received was for me and my pup. Good luck with the pup, it can be a really rewarding experience.

Garrison