Runner when bird flushes

[going4it]

Working a few months now with my 8 month old pup in the field and it seems when a bird flushes he runs after it. I thought I remember a few tips on here that people said they used to break a dog of that. He does great with everything else, works the field, retrieves, its just the running after a flush that ticks me off. More because he could end up ruining the hunt by flushing the birds way out there. Thanks in advance. I have learned a ton off of this board since getting him.

[CousinEddie]

There are a lot of different approaches that you would take. But my personal 2 cents would be to avoid any type negative reinforcement that a young pup could associate with birds. The first thing that I would try is to go out in an open area (no busy roads nearby) with a bunch of pigeons (feral birds which are strong flyers) and a bird launcher. Let him go ahead, flush (if he's a flushing breed) and chase without any shots being fired and sooner or later the pup should come to the conclusion that the only birds he can get ahold of are the ones you shoot for him. If he chases, don't shoot and he's forced to watch it fly away. It's kind of the same idea that you use to steady up a pointer; if he creeps on the pigeon, it gets up and fly's away so they decide that creeping in and bumping birds is counterproductive to what they want.....

He may also decide that he really enjoys the chase, but the method worked great on my Brittany pup who's now 8 months. About 35 pigeons and he's absolutely convinced that if he so much as twitches his foot, the bird will get away. He'll lock up on point at any distance from me and I can causally walk over towards him without any concern of him moving in on the bird. Pretty fun to watch them develop at this age.

[Todd Caswell]

I'm just guessing by your description it's a flusher, 8 monthes is pretty young to exspect a dog to be steady to flush and shot, some people don't agree with me but I don't hunt my dogs until there over a year old, thast doesn't mean they don't have bird exposure in a controled envirment but they are not hunted over in the field. I have all labs but I want them steady to flush and shot, some will argue that you loose birds, maybe a few but I don't care it's a safety issue for me. It's a really simple procedure, once there collar conditioned to the whistle sit we introduce a bird ( flush) bird gets up blow the whistle and reinforce it with the collar, over time dog will sit on it's own after the flush. If your dog is chasing you have to go to the root of the problem. Think of it this way he doesn't have a "chasing" problem, he either has a "sitting" problem or a "recall" problem. Work on and fix those two things and he won't be chasing anymore.

[Jmnhunter]

this is a downfall to my lab, (hes my first dog, 4.5 years old now) it gets really irritating, but he'll chase birds after a flush, not as far these days, but he'll still do it; it all attributes to using weak "flyers" when i was training him, quail and clipped pigeons that would only fly 30yds, and this just kept building inside of him "if i chase it far enough, they'll eventually land" I've definately learned my lesson to make better use of the check cord.

my plan this summer is to head to willow creek kennels, along with a check cord and putting my "pup" under some birds

I originally wanted to train him sit to flush like Todd does, but after tryiing with very little results and opted to let him run.

he will sit next to me in the duck blind and is steady until i release him for a fallen duck