Will Wild Birds Teach my Dog?

There’s a bunch of ways to do things. People use to take a dogs to the shooting range tie them to the bumper and shoot a round of clays to acclimate them to the gun… some dogs turned out ok. All dogs are different. The way I work dogs is from decades of developing dogs and watching some good pros and amateurs and seeing hundreds of dogs in the field. Terms get confusing as one definition of a broke or started dog can vary.

For me I start a dog like this. Make them my friend, teach them here and heel on a check cord. Bird into on pigeons in launchers. Never let them catch a bird intro to a blank pistol at the same time. This is a first year puppy. Here’s a video of a young setter just starting. I don’t say anything once she establishes point any movement puts the bird in the air. She starts to understand if she moves, bird flys game over. She’s allowed to chase. We continue like this with some nuance while separately overlaying her obedience with the e collar on the neck. I teach her to go with me whether on horse back or foot. As the I continue to introduce birds if she shows no mind for the blank I will add a 28 ga from someone standing 50 yards away as the bird flushes gradually working closer then up to a 20. When she’s holding a launcher pigeon to the point I can get out front and flush and also has no issue with the 20, I will kill one bird for her. This completes the loop in her mind. At this point she has never actually got a bird in her mouth. Combining all these elements gives her the format of how to “catch” a bird. She must go with me, she must point on scent, she must not move, hold point until I flush the birds then she gets her prize. At this point she’s ready to go hunting. The goal is as many wild bird contacts as possible and to keep her going with me. If she knocks birds I don’t do much accept get her around after she’s done a little chasing. If she barks at the birds I just let her figure it out. If she points and hold point I will kill that bird for her. Only if she holds point through the flush. Most dogs will usually be to this point at the end of a good first season with lots of bird contacts. Now the next phase is largely dependent on the dogs personality and mentality. If she bold on her birds, hunting well, I will go into whoa breaking her that next summer. I won’t go into that but getting 100% flat footed can stop her and make her stand anywhere at any given time is whoa broke. I use an e collar on the flank here. At the start of the next season if she is 110% whoa broke I will begin to take the chase from her. Again I start with pigeons because it’s controlled and if she regresses I would rather it be on pigeons than game birds. I will set launcher upwind and when she’s close enough maybe 20-30 yards I pop it. When she starts to chase I will whoa here and use the stim to get her to stop. Walk up style her up and go on. Repeat until she’s stopping on her own. Transition this to the field the next hunting season. Now if and only when she is pointing staunch and consistently stopping to flush every time I may shoot a bird she does a perfect stf, but only on a bird that I know for a fact she couldn’t smell. Just to reinforce this behavior. I’ve seen so many nice dogs that never became honest bird dogs because the owner was just too worried about killing birds. They never became disciplined enough to handle birds with manners because the owner didn’t do yard work. There is so much more than goes into training a bird dog but this is just a quick overview of how I start one. You need to be able to read a dog and understand what it’s ready for in training. Over my time I think the worst thing that can happen is that a newer owner/trainer gets lucky and gets a completely natural bird dog. Those dogs sort of train themselves and it gives you the illusion they are all like that when in fact most of them need to be developed trained and proofed.

Not sure how to post a video
 
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