Off season for the dogs

[ScreamingPotato]

My old girl is 11, so I started letting her up on the couch. That's about all she's doing til next December.

Momma took her for a walk around the neighborhood tonight, doggie came back looking like she ran a marathon. Hurts my heart a bit.

 

[GreenNDark Timber]

Year 1 - socializing, introduce them to tracking, birds, develop point, obedience.

Year 2 - obedience, force fetch, drags, tracking, search patterns in heavier cover, duck searches, begin working on steadiness

Year 3 - obedience, blood tracking, duck searches, heavy cover hunting, steady to wing and shot

Year 4 - enjoy your dog.

Year 5 - enjoy your dog

Year 6 - add a new puppy

Pretty good summary right here. I'm happy I'm in year 4 but already looking forward to year 6 (or maybe 5).

One book I'd recommend is "How to Help Gun Dogs Train Themselves" by Joan Bailey. It focuses on year 1 and the importance of letting them develop naturally. It was a great reminder for me to be patient and not force anything too early.

 

[loganwayne]

I've been following this thread for a little bit now and am wondering if folks here are following a training plan or just picking drills where the dogs need improvement?

I have a new pup coming at the end of July and have a couple pointing specific books that I've begun reading, but am curious as to how you all develop training plans for your dogs.

i have used the upland institute videos on two dogs now. They do a good job. But like others have said if you can find someone with more experience you and your dog are going to get better faster. That said every dog is different dont rush the dog they have a long life. ( this is something i have to step back and tell myself all the time) just because someones dog did it at 6 months doesnt mean yours should or that it will be a bad dog.

Build a pigeon loft and get some birds now, unless you have access to alot of wild birds. Bird dogs need alot of contacts with birds.

 

[Jason Snyder]

We traveled last week, so we worked in a lot of new training areas. Up until now I’ve been doing pretty much everything on ball fields with mowed grass. We used this as an opportunity to start working into heavier cover.

All of a sudden, she can’t just look for bumpers, she has to use her nose. The transition has actually gone really well. We also introduced the “hunt dead” command. She was searching for and finding bumpers in waist high grass and brush.



Today we did a rabbit drag in some forested area. I did this on an 30’ check cord to keep her speed down. She quickly picked up the rabbit and carried it back our start without issue.

After that I placed a blind ladder and then let her watch me drop the first one. This was some of the best work I’ve seen from her yet. She took the line, ran hard and then used her nose. She did a really nice job of casting and pushing out and found all four bumpers. This is the cover we were working in.

 

[Cant hit em]

I have friends doing an HRC test in washington next week so we did a mock Seasoned test today

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[TSAMP]

Caught birds today and couldn't help but take advantage of the cooler temps.

 

[jmez]

Nice day. Didn't get out of the seventies.

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[160andup]

Busy off season starting here in the next couple weeks. Added this little girl to the pack this week. Will be a fun summer and fall!