Grouse Dog

[Wild Willie]

Beef46 - did Ben take Ike and Babe out with you for a little mock hunt. Did he plant any chukars? How many of Blitz's littermates are left. Shoot a digital of Blitz and try and post-it...would love to see what he looks like. Good luck with Blitz and lets keep in touch!

[Beef46]

Blitz has one litter mate left but someone was coming tonight to nab him.

We did a mock hunt with Ike and Babe. No Chuckers planted but from what I saw I was impressed.

I have never been able to post pictures here otherwise I would post a pic of Blitz.

[setterguy]

Willie - sorry for the delay, I didn't see the question you posted for me until today so here goes. To the question what makes a good grouse dog?

I would say the #1 thing that makes a good grouse dog is the ability for that dog to stop at the faintest hint of scent. I have shot many birds over dogs that really had no idea where a bird was located, just that there was one in the area. The second most important trait in a grouse dog is what I call grouse smarts, and it is impossible to train. A guy told me once "Any old dog can point birds, it takes a grouse dog to FIND birds" A true grouse dog in my opinion will bring you to birds instead of just pointing the ones that you bring it to. Make sense? Some dogs never figure it out, some do it from the time they hit the ground. My little female was pointing and holding wild grouse when she was 6 months old, its nothing I taught her (I wish I could take credit for it) its just something that is imbedded in her brain. Of course the ability to hold birds is important, but if a dog doesn't hold its point I want nothing to do with it anyway. One more thing that I have noticed in the truely gifted dogs that I have seen is thier ability to cover ground in the woods without effort and with that noise. Some dogs are just light on thier feet, others seem to hit every twig, and crash through every brush pile in the woods. I don't know if its something they do consciencly or not but it would only make sense that the less noise they make the better chance they have of nailing that ruffie down. Sorry for the long winded version, but once you get me talkin grouse dogs, the fingers just fly...good luck to everyone this weekend.

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Keep the tip up, ask permission and shoot straight. Setterguy

[half2fish]

I just got a Black lab/golden retriever. would that be an ok dog to use for grouse hunting? i love to do it but a dog would be nice.

[setterguy]

If you have your dog trained I don't see any reason why that dog wouldn't do well on grouse. Since your dog is a flushing dog you have to decide on a distance that you are comfortable with and train it to stay within that range while in the woods.

[Wild Willie]

Setterguy - thanks for getting back to me regarding the question of – what really makes a truly good grouse dog? As you might have guessed...I just want to measure my dog against your list of important attributes to see if he may be something worth taking out into the grouse woods.

#1: Stopping at the faintest hint of scent – I have witnessed Buddy do this a number of times while hunting pheasants and chukar. The better the scenting conditions the farther away he will lock down. I know he can't see the bird...but he knows one is in the direction his noise is pointed. The bird could be a foot away or it could be ten feet away...I have also noticed that his sight points are different from scent points.

#2: The second most important trait in a grouse dog is what I call grouse smarts, and it is impossible to train – Don't know about this one...I can only keep my fingers crossed.

#3: Of course the ability to hold birds is important, but if a dog doesn't hold its point I want nothing to do with it anyway – I feel really good about this one!

#4: One more thing that I have noticed in the truely gifted dogs that I have seen is thier ability to cover ground in the woods without effort and with that noise – Not sure about this one...but I know Buddy is a quick compact little dog. I'm sure he will be fine with this one as well.

Thanks for your input and I look forward to seeing you up at the Farm in Princeton on Oct. 2nd.

[Fishaholic1]

Hi there, I've hunted over a Brit for the past six years. I would highly recomend them for hunting Grouse, woodcock, and really good for Pheasant. One very important idem you need is a shock collar. They can really cruise on ya if you are not careful, other then that, my Brit is 50 pounds and not fat, so you can find them bigger then those little Frenchies. I like the Brits that barge into the thorn bush without hesitation. Email me if you have any other questions, [email protected]