Training a bird dog at 5?

[Str8shooter]

I would also recommend bonding with the dog first, get to a point where the dog trusts you and is interested in getting praise/treats. Then move to getting some birds (pigeons, pen raised quail) and getting her conditioned with guns/birds. The .22 blank and using a friend to come closer as you expose the dog is a great idea. It is surprising how sensitive some dogs can be, and you dont get but one chance to screw it up. Then its all about boot miles. Ive trained up two dogs that were adults, and after a couple seasons and interacting with a couple dozen wild birds they both turned into great hunters.

 

[GSPHUNTER]

I have had a lot of people ask me, why is your hunting dog scared by thunder and fire works and not when you shoot. The answer Is very simple, when we are hunting he is in his element doing what he loves, he associates the hunting and the noise of the gun with something he loves to do .

 

[KenLee]

If she doesn't take to birds or guns, she may still make a good tracker for wounded deer.

 

[whoami-72]

If she doesn't take to birds or guns, she may still make a good tracker for wounded deer.

That's actually genius. I've taught her to enjoy finding things by hiding treats or toys and making her find them. At first she hated it but it's becoming one of her favorite games. I'm about to start working with her on tracking outdoors soon. Got any good learning material on how to teach them to track deer?

Exposing her to louder objects hasn't been great. At first she was terrified of even my bow. Now she'll tolerate being in the garage while I'm shooting it but will sit on the opposite side of the garage in front of the door waiting to be let back in.

Back story, the very first deer I shot I actually didn't recover it before nature had reclaimed it. It was encroaching 100 degrees, the deer had been out there for 4-6 hours, and bugs and animals had already started eating on it. Frankly, even if I had a trained tracking dog it would've been 8 hours and three tanks of gas before I would've been able to get the dog on the trail. Butttttt, I would love to have the opportunity in the future to try and prevent another situation like that. Plus it would be great to try and help friends in that situation.

 

[ks farmer]

Bang two pots together when feeding she will associate noise with food. Works for me with pups!

 

[KenLee]

Hmmmmm ok, my neighbors threw a fit when I was shooting my bow at my house so they definitely wouldn’t like gun shot noises. However, I could work on that at my in-laws house or just head to the desert. I didn’t think about the .22lr or retrieving. I’ll give that a try first. After a few days with us at the house she isn’t nearly as afraid as she used to be. Loud noises around the house isn’t an issue anymore thankfully.

I was planning on trying to associate fun shots with good things but I was gonna use the supressed rifle and the wife giving her treats 100yds back or so and work her way up. I think that may end up being an intermediary step if necessary. Plus I have ~5k ish rounds of .22lr and I have to hand load each of my rifle rounds so that will save me lots of time

"..my neighbors threw a fit when I was shooting my bow at my house so they definitely wouldn’t like gun shot noises."

Sounds like you need to break in the neighbor s. I can come by for a weekend and afterwards they will appreciate you .

 

[bkusna15]

If you have not introduced her to gun fire, i would start with 12ga just primed hull. No powder, then try stubby .22. You can find them relatively cheap on LCS. then move to field trial rounds. Also do it with live birds if possible.

 

[nesqymatt]

These are all great recommendations.I'd like to add to give the pup about 2-3 weeks to decompress from the adoption process. Once the pup gets the idea that this is now home, I would start with basic obedience and then hit the subdued gunfire exposure during play/retrieve time.

Over the years, I had 2 adopted hunting dogs that I've trained. We wouldn't win a field trial but those dogs hunted their hearts out.

The other posters are right on - once the pup fills out, she will be a great looking hunting partner!


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[bdg848]

You %100 can train her. Especially a retriever/flusher. You said she loves fetch so now you just need to transition that into loving to fetch feathered things and have decent obedience in the blind. For upland, All you need to do is get them excited about trying to jump on and catch birds and enough obedience to keep them within gun range. I trained a 10 year old GSP and he was coming along nicely, finding birds, holding point long enough for me to get in and flush them, but unfortunately he hurt his knee before I really got to test him on WILD birds. I have no doubt he would have done well, though. Now he his retired.

 

[bdg848]

The key will be exposure to birds and gunfire. Don't screw up the gunfire part.....As for birds, I highly recommend homing pigeon's.