Has anyone trained a non hunting dog to do some hunting related things.?

[Milestone522]

Back in the late 80s my friends and I were pheasant hunting beet fields east of Arbuckle CA, and came across a guy using a black lab and a dachshund to hunt. We hunted with him for a while, with the lab busting around the waist high beets, and the weiner dog running completely out of sight underneath, the pheasant had nowhere to hide. It was great day of pheasant hunting and those two dogs were quite the team.

I also met a guy one time who was archery hunting pheasant and had a chow mix dog flushing birds for him to arrow out of the sky. He had limited out so his dog must have had some skill to flush...

 

[Chuckybmd]

I have a terrier mix that is a cold blooded rockchuck killer. She only weighs 20 lbs, but is fast enough to take the small critters by surprise.

This translates into occasional accuracy in flushing game birds as well.

 

[Z71&Gun]

I taught my husky/shepherd mix to flush and retrieve. He wants to root out animals naturally, so I just had to teach him to fetch. Then started taking him hunting. I use bird wings tied to bumper toys to teach him to find the birds. Porcupines were a major problem but he seems to have learned his lesson after 200+ quills. He doesn't point and he flushes birds a bit farther away than I'd like, but he gets more birds up than any dog I've hunted over and if one goes down, he finds it.

 

[Sierra Hunter]

I had a Rottweiler that retrieved every duck I ever shot around him. He didn’t bring them directly to me but he got them out of the water and that was just fine with me. I can’t say I really taught him that, he just had a huge prey drive that I always encouraged. I did teach him hand signals, which helped. Possums were his favorite though. So much so that I had to start carrying a 4ft hickory stick with me on our walk around the neighborhood before bed to punch out the ones that got up the tree before he could get to them and finish off the ones that needed it after he got done whoopin and crunchin on em. He’d dig a 30’ trench for a gopher or field mouse and his total disregard for briars and thorns chasing rabbits was hard to believe. I miss him every day.
This picture is in a frame over my bed. It was from a muskrat extraction mission. While he was workin on that spot the muskrat swam out from another hole in the bank and I shot him with my 22, I had to act like I missed him so he went back to work on his diggin and I walked over and picked up the muskrat and stuck it in the weeds next to him while he had his head down digging in the mud. He thrashed it for a split second once he found it then looked up at me like “what the hell?! All that for this lifeless lilttle thing?!” I was laughing and he was visibly underwhelmed with the outcome and about half mad at me. View attachment 564658

A good working dog can’t be beat. Great story and good looking dog. Almost got a rot but ended up with a GSD the idea of a rot always testing the hierarchy seemed like a lot to ask of the wife.

 

[huntsman22]

my heeler is a better retriever, than 90% of the retrievers out there.....

 

[KurtR]

my heeler is a better retriever, than 90% of the retrievers out there.....

I will take that bet.

 

[Sierra Hunter]

my heeler is a better retriever, than 90% of the retrievers out there.....

Jesus there’s a bear next to that heeler.

 

[BBob]

I had a female pitty that loved to swim. She loved cattle ponds and lakes swimming around chasing the bugs on the water. I said what the heck and took her pond jumping once for ducks. With no training whatsoever she retrieved those ducks like a champ for many years. I've got some old pictures of her somewhere with some of her ducks.

 

[MightyWhitey]

A good working dog can’t be beat. Great story and good looking dog. Almost got a rot but ended up with a GSD the idea of a rot always testing the hierarchy seemed like a lot to ask of the wife.

He tested the hierarchy to the limit, and I’m putting that nicely. It was like that until about the time he turned 5 and then we were really on a good groove. Less than a year later he died in my arms on the bed from a heart attack/stroke.

 

[Iowafarmer]

When we were kids my brothers and I pheasant hunted with our German shepherd she did a fine job although not very soft mouthed now I have springer spaniels they’ve turned into pretty good coon dogs when not pheasant hunting

 

[Darryle]

Not my dog, but have seen several duck retreiving Jack Russell terriers

 

[KurtR]

Not my dog, but have seen several duck retreiving Jack Russell terriers

View attachment 565152

Thats gator the duck dog and he got trained with the labs at One shot retrievers.