When to add a second dog?

[burbank]

Don’t!

 

[Jason Snyder]

Bumping this thread. I'd like to discuss working two dogs in the field specifically the Do's and Dont's. I have planned to hunt seperate this first season.

Here’s what I did, at the recommendation from my breeder:

First month or two, hunt them together. Let pup learn from the older dog.

When pup has figured out searching and pointing, hunt him solo for a month so

Then, hunt them together with occasional solo hunts mixed in.

I hunted mine together all the time until about 2-3 months in. My older dog tore a pad and went on IR for a few weeks. Pup got hunted solo for a month straight. It did wonders for her dead bird searches.

After my older dog healed I hunted them together, with the occasional solo hunt for each. If I hunted three days straight, I’d do solo, team, solo.

You want each of them to learn to honor the other, and they won’t do that hunting solo. However, they also need to learn to hunt and retrieve solo as well. I found my pup got lazy real fast because my older dog is so good and so efficient at finding dead birds.

 

[TSAMP]

Figured I'd update this thread. I'm right over 6 months with the Pup and hes around 55lbs. Within the last week the older dog has begun trying to hump the pup quite extensively. Pups wrestling him off well I've stayed out of it for the most part as it's all been out in the yard.

The male on male dynamic hasn't been fairly uneventful so far. The younger dog has bullied the older one without much issue around food/toys. The only time I've seen things go western so far is over dead critters. Teeth come out but no biting has happened. Just snapping. I take it from the both of them. The little dog isn't backing down though.

Updating the thread. My pup is nearly 1 year old. I've had a couple minor issues with aggression inside over couch/people but otherwise uneventful. This latest one was while hunting, so far this season it had been a whoever gets to it first gets the bird with not much drama. We had a cripple recovery, I believe my older dog tracked it, the younger dog must have tried taking it and he came back with the bird and missing a piece of his ear. It was out of eyesight and I heard nothing to I really don't know what happened so this is just a guess. But I have noticed the old dog nip ears when they rough house outside. So it seems the most likely scenario.

 

[TSAMP]

Update: pup is around 14 months old and finished his first season.

The season started slow. The dogs hunt well together but the pup is clearly dominant and we had issues over bird aggression on retrieves. I should have known given the training leading up to it, but it caused some issues with my older dog hard mouthing birds and resulted in some mangled birds. I didnt want to work in any discipline with birds being his first year, so that will be a focus this spring.

I would say they hunted 75% the season seperate, and hunting the young dog was a chore. He didn't range well initially and it made for boring hunts. We grinded it out and by the last few weeks of my season I didn't have a preference which dog I ran as the pup started getting much more confident.


The home life with two Intact males has been relatively uneventful. The only time they have scrapped is over food and they are fed outside, but I was clearly wrong about who would run things.

 

[KurtR]

My dog is turning 5 in a couple days so I am in the early stages of starting to look at dogs I like a parings . Will probably get a puppy around next January. It will be another male dog. I’m excited to do things differently as my guy now has taught me a lot. I don’t think my wife is as excited as me though haha

 

[TSAMP]

My dog is turning 5 in a couple days so I am in the early stages of starting to look at dogs I like a parings . Will probably get a puppy around next January. It will be another male dog. I’m excited to do things differently as my guy now has taught me a lot. I don’t think my wife is as excited as me though haha

My pup came home in Feb and he was big enough to train with all summer and kicked off his first season right around 9 months.

Perfect timing and he didnt slow our season down one bit.

 

[KurtR]

My pup came home in Feb and he was big enough to train with all summer and kicked off his first season right around 9 months.

Perfect timing and he didnt slow our season down one bit.

That’s why I like that time only down side is waiting for water introduction. I probably will only hunt him a few times with a couple people and not even bring my own gun.

Plan on trying some srs and field trials with this next one

 

[Clovis]

This is all very helpful--I am a few months behind you. I have a 5 year old intact male small munsterlander and one of his sons from a litter born in mid-April so about 10 months old. So far not much drama between them though the big dog will assert himself when the pup gets too annoying. We'll see how that develops. and it is my main concern with the project I hunted them together and separately through the season and they eventually developed into a pattern of independent hunting--no real coordination between them though they sometimes would work and point the same bird, each doing his own work, but also no honoring. Sometimes it was better than one dog on the ground and sometimes not. Some of the care for the dogs is the same--they both get a couple big runs in every day--and it is trending in that direction, but it is a lot of work and more logistically challenging to keep up with both--more vets, more training, two crates, etc. and twice as expensive. Starting to get the pup tuned up for the VJP in April and using it as a chance to refresh some training for the big dog too. If you want to keep yourself in good working dogs, I don't see another good option than to start a new one while the older one is still in the game. So far I am happy with the timing.