Teaching the Crawl

[spearingboy]

Hey everyone. I ended up getting the new Sportdog Wetland Hunter 2000. It's working good so far. I just had a question about teaching my dog to crawl. Has anyone tried this with or without success? I think it would come in handy for sneaking/jump shooting. I've taught her to lay down so I think that should help. Any recommendations? Thanks a lot.

[O2BFSHN]

I've actually done this. It works great for the type of hunting you mentioned. It works a lot better if your dog has the capability of lying down with her legs lying strait back. I have a chesapeke that does this well. Trained her by short leashing by your left side. I do left due to gun in my right hand. With her legs back she crawls right beside me. I have about a foot of line between my hand and her collar and crawl starting slow and short( like 5ft goal first), if she/he gets up start over, once you hit the small goal praise her as she has done something a lot of dogs can not. Make your goals longer and longer. If she can crawl with you for more than 25 to 50 ft she will be great. The next step that I trained was to (stay) in the crawl position while you crawl another 10 to 15 more feet. This is where you would shoot. I wouldn't ever shoot over your dog, this step eliminates this from happening. Not only pellets, but her hearing is sensitve also. Hope this helps you in your training.

Best of Luck!