Gun Dog Training

I recently became the owner of a yellow lab. She’s about 18 months old and fetches almost anything thrown. I’m mostly an upland hunter, but occasionally will do some waterfowling, but not much. Right now, the dog comes when called and I’ve taken her out to large fields and when she gets too far out, I call and she comes back or simply stops until I get to her. These are all good things, but now I want to get her on some birds.

Do I start with buying some pheasant wings from Scheels or do I get some pigeons and clip the wings a bit? Also, how do I introduce her to gunfire? I’ve heard start with a .22 first, then gradually move on to shotguns.

Any advice you can give me or point me to books or videos would really be appreciated. I think I’ve got one helluva dog on my hands and I want to get the most out of her potential.

Thanks

I have a yellow lab, the gun training is easy. Take the dog to a trap club and park way back. then just start walking around and trowing a ball. Slow get closer to the shooters if you any type of change in the dog back off and praise her. keep this up and be for you know it she wont even pay attention to the shoots.
I would take the dog to Armstrong kennels.

you cant go wrong with the bible of all training books “water dog” by woelters. it covers all and everything you might not even use. as for advice , jason dohmeyer at “cannon river kennels” would be a good person to takl to. hope this helps

As far as gun breaking I have done it both ways but I prefer to do it over live birds especially with the age of your dog. Start with a .22 or starter pistol and work your way up, make sure the dog is chasing the bird and all attention is on it when firing.

If it is already retrieving you may not need to bother with wings, just make sure she brings it all the way back to you, if she stops never go to her, back away and make like you are leaving, she will pick the bird up and bring it to you then. I’m going to be getting some birds in Sept. (pheasants) for a warm up to the Dakotas hunts for my dogs (I have a 10 month old that needs more practice). If you have any other questions let me know.

Michael

Hop over to IDO hunting and go to the dog forum, Don Hanson the IDO “Dog Whiperer” is awsome with dogs, he has helped me out with our lab. He had her for a couple of weeks, she was treeted as if she was his own. Is online advice is awsome

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I have a yellow lab, the gun training is easy. Take the dog to a trap club and park way back. then just start walking around and trowing a ball. Slow get closer to the shooters if you any type of change in the dog back off and praise her. keep this up and be for you know it she wont even pay attention to the shoots.
I would take the dog to Armstrong kennels.

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i hate to be devils advocate here, but that is a terrible way to introduce gun fire to a pup. you need to read up on some training material.

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you cant go wrong with the bible of all training books “water dog” by woelters. it covers all and everything you might not even use. as for advice , jason dohmeyer at “cannon river kennels” would be a good person to takl to. hope this helps

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waterdog is an old, out of date training material. there are newer, better ways to train dogs that get much more success, much easier. and as far as cannon river kennels, the highest dog in their personnel kennel is an AKC MH, that they did not train, they bought…

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Hop over to IDO hunting and go to the dog forum, Don Hanson the IDO “Dog Whiperer” is awsome with dogs

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Yep! What he said

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Hop over to IDO hunting and go to the dog forum, Don Hanson the IDO “Dog Whiperer” is awsome with dogs, he has helped me out with our lab. He had her for a couple of weeks, she was treeted as if she was his own. Is online advice is awsome

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bump, though I trained my own dog using experience, common sense and Wolters advice.

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I have a yellow lab, the gun training is easy. Take the dog to a trap club and park way back. then just start walking around and trowing a ball. Slow get closer to the shooters if you any type of change in the dog back off and praise her. keep this up and be for you know it she wont even pay attention to the shoots.
I would take the dog to Armstrong kennels.

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i hate to be devils advocate here, but that is a terrible way to introduce gun fire to a pup. you need to read up on some training material.

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I have do disagree with you Perch_44 if you do it correctly it works great. I live a mile away from a gun club, when I fist got my dog we would go for a walk every day and go by the gun club. For the first week we just kept walking down the road well away from the range. I also brought a ball along for her to fetch, the second week we got a little closer, by the third week we were right down by the range this worked great she associated the gun club with play time because she knew that is where we would stop and she could play and fetch her ball.

CornHunka, I agree with some of the above, but for further advice go to http://www.iDoHunting.com as there are quite a few lab guys over there also, that are always looking to talk dog training and Don Hanson is one of the ones that really have the knowledge and passion for it.

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I have a yellow lab, the gun training is easy. Take the dog to a trap club and park way back. then just start walking around and trowing a ball. Slow get closer to the shooters if you any type of change in the dog back off and praise her. keep this up and be for you know it she wont even pay attention to the shoots.

I would take the dog to Armstrong kennels.

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i hate to be devils advocate here, but that is a terrible way to introduce gun fire to a pup. you need to read up on some training material.

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I agree with Perch on this one! While it may work for some, there are better ways of going about it. Dogs are not born gun shy!

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waterdog is an old, out of date training material. there are newer, better ways to train dogs that get much more success, much easier.

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I agree again! While Gun Dog will definitely work for training a dog the methods were written many years ago, and like with anything….new and more effrective ways of doing things are developed!

what you need to do is get some good training material and work through it step by step, and do not skip over anything.

i personally like the Fowl Dawgs series by Rick Stawski, but there are a lot of other good ones too. the other one i would recommend is Evan Graham’s Smart Works Series.

Fowl Dawgs
http://www.finelineretrievers.com/dvd.html

Smart Works
http://www.rushcreekpress.com/

these two i feel are best suited for the novice trainer looking for a hunting/AKC Hunt Test style dog. most of the other material on the market is more suited for a higher caliber dog and AKC FT training. i just would stay away from Wolter’s training material. It was good in its day, but it is out of date, and there are much better methods right now.

as far as training material, you’re going to want to get at least 15-20 white bumpers, plus some black or orange ones, i would go 2″ for all of them. you’ll need a force fetch block or dumbell. e-collar (dogtra or TriTronics i recommend) heeling stick, 20ft rope for a check cord, choke chain.

when you train your dog, you are teaching concepts, and only bumpers should be used, when you start to run marks and test these concepts, thats when the use of dead birds and live flyers come in.

where are you located at? i’m always looking for people to train with.

also, you can try idohunting.com, but probably the best dog training site out there, with the most pro’s on it, is http://www.retrievertraining.net/forums

Get the obedience side down and the rest is very easy. The intro to gunfire is not to be done at a trap range. Should be done over birds so that they relate gunfire to a dead bird. Do it slowly and be careful with a mature dog. Any issues with loud noise now will be an indication of problems in the field. (Thunder?) My dogs used to look for birds falling over the 4th of July weekend with all the fireworks. It was really quite funny.

The key to a good bird dog is LOTS OF HUNTING. My best dogs were the one’s that hunted all the time. I could run them in the woods and fields with little or no talking to them. They just knew what they were doing. Point, kill and retrieve. Over and over….

Now I have to use training collars and have much lower expectations of what the dogs can do as they only get out about 21 days a year, including some work at the Horse and Hunt Club. They are better fish dogs than bird dogs.

Oh well.

Now that I have a wife and kid, my dogs are like pets.

Dog

something that needs to be cleared up in this discussion is what are people’s opinions of a good bird dog? because you need to base recommendations off of what they hold for standards. a lot of people just want a dog that will flush pheasants for them, and retrieve ducks that they see fall, and be obedient 50% of the time.

with the recommendations i made, it is based off of what i require and demand from my dog for hunting: 100% obedient, collar conditioned, completely steady, will run multiple retrieves, and blind retrieves. that is a minimum for me in the duck blind.

i don’t care how much you hunt a dog, if you don’t train it, it will never learn half of what i expect my dog to know.

You train to hunt…you don’t hunt to train…

Go with pigeons to start out with. Introduce her to birds first. What I mean is, while out in the field take a pigeons and pull out the flight feathers. Toss the bird down and let her chase it. All you want to do is get her excited about birds. Don’t worry if she doesn’t retrieve or muches the bird at this time. Do this as many sessions as it takes until your satisfied with her prey drive.Now I will switch to a locked wing bird. I will toss the bird and have the dog chase. If she brings it back fine but use a checkcord so you can gently pull her back. By all means encourage her to bring it back to you but don’t correct her if she does not comply. When she is “birdy” and her whole purpose in life is to chase birds, we can start adding gunfire. Start with a .22 crimps. have the shooter about 100 yards away from you. When you toss the bird and the dog is in route, have the shooter fire. If the dogs total focuse stays on the bird, you can move the shooter in to about 50 yards. If the dog ignores the gunshot, keep moving the shooter in. If all goes well you would repeat the steps using a .410 and then finally a 12 gauge. Don’t rush this, take as much time as needed. This isn’t going to happen in one day. If at anytime the dog reacts to the gunfire, move the shooter back out to the prior distance. If the dog still reacts at the furtherest distance, go back to just tossing birds. Next in a field with short grass, plant some pigeons again with the flight feathers pulled. Take her into the field and let her find the birds. We are not working on retrieving but I do use a checkcord. That way I can gently pull her into me and have her go find the next bird. As the bird flops away I will fire a .22 crimp.
After the dog is up to my expectations in the field, I will work on retrieving birds. I like using an area where the dog has no where to run except back to me. I set up a fence to use as a. Now it will become habit for the dog to bring the bird back to me. Once the dog is reliable in a confined area, you can start tossing retrieves out in th open.
Three areas will get you the results you want. 1.birds & guns. 2. retrieving. 3. obedience. I like to work them in that order.
Depending on where you live, you are probably only 10 weeks or so away from pheasant season. I would get the bird and gun work done, work on retrieving and do introduce obedience. That way you can go into the hunting season with a dog that finds and fetches birds is used to gunfire and will respond to commands. After the season you then can train on blinds, casting, multiple marks, collar conditioning, ect.

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Go with pigeons to start out with. Introduce her to birds first. What I mean is, while out in the field take a pigeons and pull out the flight feathers. Toss the bird down and let her chase it. All you want to do is get her excited about birds. Don’t worry if she doesn’t retrieve or muches the bird at this time. Do this as many sessions as it takes until your satisfied with her prey drive.Now I will switch to a locked wing bird. I will toss the bird and have the dog chase. If she brings it back fine but use a checkcord so you can gently pull her back. By all means encourage her to bring it back to you but don’t correct her if she does not comply. When she is “birdy” and her whole purpose in life is to chase birds, we can start adding gunfire. Start with a .22 crimps. have the shooter about 100 yards away from you. When you toss the bird and the dog is in route, have the shooter fire. If the dogs total focuse stays on the bird, you can move the shooter in to about 50 yards. If the dog ignores the gunshot, keep moving the shooter in. If all goes well you would repeat the steps using a .410 and then finally a 12 gauge. Don’t rush this, take as much time as needed. This isn’t going to happen in one day. If at anytime the dog reacts to the gunfire, move the shooter back out to the prior distance. If the dog still reacts at the furtherest distance, go back to just tossing birds. Next in a field with short grass, plant some pigeons again with the flight feathers pulled. Take her into the field and let her find the birds. We are not working on retrieving but I do use a checkcord. That way I can gently pull her into me and have her go find the next bird. As the bird flops away I will fire a .22 crimp.

After the dog is up to my expectations in the field, I will work on retrieving birds. I like using an area where the dog has no where to run except back to me. I set up a fence to use as a. Now it will become habit for the dog to bring the bird back to me. Once the dog is reliable in a confined area, you can start tossing retrieves out in th open.

Three areas will get you the results you want. 1.birds & guns. 2. retrieving. 3. obedience. I like to work them in that order.

Depending on where you live, you are probably only 10 weeks or so away from pheasant season. I would get the bird and gun work done, work on retrieving and do introduce obedience. That way you can go into the hunting season with a dog that finds and fetches birds is used to gunfire and will respond to commands. After the season you then can train on blinds, casting, multiple marks, collar conditioning, ect.

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how can you confidently teach a dog anything without teaching formal obedience first??

and i have to disagree with hunting a dog that is not ready, that dog will pick up bad habits throughout the season that will be that much tougher to break and train through. not to mention steadied, collared conditioned and force fetched. there is no way that dog will be ready to go by hunting season.

i would train that dog all throughout the year, and take it on very limited hunting trips, until you get it completely under control.

IMO a dog is not ready to hunt until obediant, force fetch, collar condition and steadying have been completed. because without those basic tools, you have a dog that could end up being more of a liability then an advantage to have in the field. training a dog is a step by step process, not just jump around to what you feel like teaching them and “hope it works out”…

how can you confidently teach a dog anything without teaching formal obedience first??

That is a fair question so lets look back at the orginal post. We are talking about a recently acquired dog being introduced to birds. I take young dogs out for bird and gun training long before formal obebience training. Case in point, I wait until the dog is mature enough to handle the pressure of formal obedience. This doesn’t mean I am not teaching the dog what the obedience commands are, I just don’t pressure them to comply until the dog understands what the command means and is mature enough to handle formal correction.
In the introduction to birds phase, I want to develope an attitude and let the dogs prey drive kick in. thats why I do not use any pressure in the introduction phase.

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and i have to disagree with hunting a dog that is not ready, that dog will pick up bad habits throughout the season that will be that much tougher to break and train through. not to mention steadied, collared conditioned and force fetched. there is no way that dog will be ready to go by hunting season.[Quote]

Followed in the order that I gave, you are building from the ground up. If I have a dog that finds, flushes and retrieves birds- that has been properly introduced to gunfire, I can now take this dog hunting. There are more steps of coures, that I didn’t cover here because the post was about bird and gun introdution. I have seen many dogs that retrieve fine without being force fetched.
Lets take a look at what motivates the dog. Finding and flushing birds and retrieving is a game the dog loves to play. Or can be trained to love it. In the inroduction phase, the dog got to do what it loves to do. What did it also learn? It learned that it got to play this game when you were nearby. You were the source of the birds. If it stays close to you it got to play the “game”. As an example lets say the dog runs “big”. what happens? You controll the birds, the game is over until the dog returns to your desired range.

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IMO a dog is not ready to hunt until obediant, force fetch, collar condition and steadying have been completed. because without those basic tools, you have a dog that could end up being more of a liability then an advantage to have in the field. training a dog is a step by step process, not just jump around to what you feel like teaching them and “hope it works out”…

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I agree that it is a step by step process. No where did I give the impression to jump around and use the “hope it works out” method. What I explained was that the first step is introduction to birds. I am not going to go through formal obedience, steadying, collar training, lining, casting, running blinds, multiple marks, until the dog is properly introduced to birds and guns. Proplerly introduce the dog to birds and guns, play the retrieving game, and train obedience is the order I gave. How is that jumping around and training what I feel like?

One thing to look at here is what does the dog already know, it is 1.5 years old. There is not enough information to say where the dog needs to start without evaluating the dog. Most hunt dogs (not used for trials) would be complete by this time (at least mine would be) and just need continued practice.

Michael

are you trying to get her to point or just flush if your working on a point with her i would start with pigeons set them out in front of her in a cage and have her stand on a piece of ply wood and tell her woe and just make her stay there after that i would set one out in a field and when she starts getting birdy and dont stop pop that bird and tell her woe she will catch on and repete that but also work on healing and sit stay as well and if she messes up dont give her birds shes gotta lern that that i a gift to her as for gun shy i would start with pots and pans and go to a .22 from there and then up hope this helps if a can help ya with anything else shoot me a pm

Perch I didn’t catch why the gun range method is a bad idea. I have used it on several dogs with good results. Like anything else if done thoughtfuly it should work. By the way I do agree that Waterdog is outdated. A good system is “Smart Works” by Even Grahams. A bit spendy but very comprehensive

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Perch I didn’t catch why the gun range method is a bad idea. I have used it on several dogs with good results. Like anything else if done thoughtfuly it should work. By the way I do agree that Waterdog is outdated. A good system is “Smart Works” by Even Grahams. A bit spendy but very comprehensive

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when doing “the gun range thing” you run the risk of creating a gun shy dog. at the point of introducing gunfire, the dog is already on a training schedule, and it will be a lot less dramatic for the dog to have it introduced while training, then just while on a walk.

the material i have followed, which is done by an AKC FT trainer. instructs to introduce a popper gun, then pistol blanks, and up to a shotgun. basically, you throw marks for your dog, but now introduce gunfire to it. start out at a long distance and pay close attention to the dogs reaction to the gun fire. if there is no reaction, have the gunner move closer. you want to go through this process until you are firing a gun next to the dog. some dogs take 1 day, some take 1 month, it all depends on the dog.

this way is a lot less likely to provoke gun shyness in a dog. when doing the trap club thing, the gun fire is not directly related to what the dog is doing, so maybe it gets comfortable hearing it, but when you move into a training scenario the dog may freak out.

just my $.02, and what i was told to do by very accomplished trainers and competitors in the field.

just remember, a dog is never born gun shy.

I do it the exact way “perch” explained it. I start with the shooter about 100 yds. out and off to my side. What your looking for is the dogs attention to be all on the thrown bird. After using this training method, when your dog hears a gun fire- he is looking for a bird to fall.
Good explaination “Perch”.