Pup question?

[SportFishin']

Questions for you guys.

We have had our new pup for about two months now & He is a Wirehaired Pointing Griffon. Named him "Rudy" & he is 4mo. old now.

He has been doing great at the obedience phase,the pheasant wing on a fishing line to practice our "Whoa", & his water retrieves are awesome, & he can track a scented pheasant wing through the back yard no problem.

We went out to the game farm on Sat. to get him introduced to the gun. Took some pigeons planted them he searched the first one out pointed the first one. I signaled my brother-inlaw for a shot at a 30yd distance & it didn't even phase Rudy his only focus was the bird in flight after my flush. So we tried to search out the next birds planted deeper into the feild & he dosen't want to search through the taller grass in front of him, he just wants to follow behind us. So we returned to the truck without forcing him to work knowing he is still a youngster. This is also his 4th time out to the field with tall grass.

So we planted 6 pheasants & worked my 8yr old Chocolate seperately so she could get her work-out for the day while we were out there.

So my questions are:

How do I get him more interested in searching the feild?

Am I starting to soon for his age in the tall grass?

Will his desire to search out birds come when he is a little older & more confident with his world?

I know it is about exposing him to birds,birds,& more birds but should I be waiting another month or so? He also is never out in the feild along side the Lab ever during our training!

Thanks for your comments in advance.

Chris & "Rudy"

[metrojoe]

There are far more qualified people than me on this forum that should be able to help you, but I'll pass on what my dogs trainer explained to me. He said that during the bird and gun intro the bird is always in plain sight or in short grass. They always showed her the bird and made sure she saw them toss it into the grass. The trainer holding her chord would then release her and let her find it and get it up. Towards the end they were working in some taller(8-10 inches high) grass, but they started out with no cover at all.

[Eric Wettschreck]

I'm no expert either, far from it. Like metrojoe, I'll pass on what a very good breeder/trainer told me.

Fellas want to get a pup and immediately have a hunting dog. They seem to not realize what they have is a puppy. Dogs know how to hunt already. Sure, we as guys fine tune some stuff into them, but hunting is an instinct that they know already. I've been told over and over, almost to the point of nagging, that for the first 6 months we need to let our puppies be puppies. Sure, introduce to gunfire, do some retrieves (as play), start the basics of obiedince training, etc. But puppies are kids and we need to let them be kids.

Couple things to keep in mind. Your pup is 4 months old?? Pretty young to have expectations set too high. If the pup doesn't want to go into tall grass, cattails, thick stuff, etc think about it for a minute. Would you, as a grown man, want to go diving into something totally unknown that is 57 times huger than you are???

It sounds like you have the starts of a very fine hunting companion. Remember to have patience, lots of patience, and relate everything to having fun. The dog will do as you want it to do as long as it's having fun. Puppies, like kids (They are kids) just wanna have fun.

Good luck to ya.

[SportFishin']

Yeah thats what I was thinking about him just being a pup yet. The birds were in plain sight for him to see when he came into thier scent cone down wind.

In no way am I forcing him to hunt yet or expecting an instant hunting dog. I already have my Chocolate Lab from Elk River Kennels who is in her prime at 8yrs of age so there is no hurry for the pup to hunt yet.

To give you some insight on him though. He will be trained to be a NAVHDA Dog. My boat has been put in storage for pretty much the next three years. To focus on the NAVHDA Aims & Guidelines for him becoming a Versatile Hunting Dog.

What I was trying to get at was some ideas as to how others have introduced there dogs to the feild & to foster the desire in the dog to search for game. Maybe your right. I might just be going at it a little to soon yet for the feild work.

Thanks for the replies & keep them coming.

Chris

[2 DA GILLS]

SportFishin'

I have a 8 month old Griffon and he is now developing better search in the taller grass. At 4 months, I did bird exposures in shorter grass mainly. He has developed the drive and desire to expand his search. The main thing I was told by the breeder I trained with was to build that desire and the rest will come. I was having concerns about his desire and game search, but just ran him in the natural ability test a couple weeks ago and he scored very well on both search and desire. I my case he just developed it on his own, but there may be individuals out there that can give you some tips to help progress your dog.

Now I just need to work on stopping him from chasing every bird that is flushed. He is not steady to flush at this point and chases long distances. Something I need to work on before the season begins. Any suggestions from anyone on how to do this without confusing him about wanting to find the birds?

[metrojoe]

Sorry I can't help you on how, but it does sound like it's time to put the birds aside for a bit and work on obedience.

Good luck

[SportFishin']

2 Da Gills,

Have you been working him on a "Whoa" table? This might help the steady to flush by going back to the table & reinforcing/re-visiting the "whoa" command. May be try with a live bird harnessed out in front of him.

Isn't training pointers fun?

Hey where did you do your NA?

Later,

Chris

[leechlake]

since it was just brought up I'll explain the training program I'm doing and DBL has been doing over a year now. The program is what people in Europe, mostly Great Britain do. I'll first say I'm doing it because I'm not a pro either but love dogs and love to hunt, I have had too many dogs that were great with instinct, I taugh blinds, hand signals the works. Problem, not good obedience. I'm not saying your dog isn't obedient. In Britain they have the dogs basically only do obedience for the first year, or to the point where the dog has sit, stay (stay as in stay for a long time with any distractions), come, heel to perfection (with distractions). Then and only then does the dog go hunting or work on retrieving bumpers.

Now, we all want to get hunting with our pups and you may think "what about nurturing and honing my hounds game finding skills." I assume you're dog is of good parents, I know it is, so you're dog has that bred into him. Obedience is not. Example...(from the British Training book)what if you took a gifted first year medical student and put him in charge of the ER. Some days the student would do fine, but eventually the complexity, pace, and responsibilities of the task would be overwhelming. In hunting terms, you go out the young dog does well and then you go with 8 guys and four dogs and next thing you know you're screaming for your dog to come and he ignores you and busts every bird at the end of the field. We've all seen it many times. So, I'm going obedience first (I have two older dogs to hunt just like you have your chocolate) and hunting second. Eventually the hunting will be the focus but with an obedient, well mannered dog. (I'm not implying your doing anything whatsoever wrong, just bringing up a point on my opinion on obedience and it's role in having great hunting pals)

So...I'm not trying to get off your first question regarding long grass but I think it brings up the point of the pace of training and some different ideas and thoughts on training. Hope I didn't offend anyone.

[SportFishin']

leechlake,

Thanks not offensive at all!!!!So none taken.

I agree with you all the way obedience first. The field work has just come into play as part of the whole package deal & we are just doing it as a fun time out of the house. Things like here is what a live bird is, that was gun shot, & so on. Things so he is familiar with what goes on in the field rather than me taking him to the NA Test in the spring an d that being his first encounter with birds & so on.

The real business of hunting comes after he has matured enough mentally & physically to handle the stressful work of being a Versatile Upland Game Dog.

Thanks Again,

Chris

[2 DA GILLS]

Since this is my first pointer, I have probably lacked on the whoa training. I have done the basic introduction to the whoa command, but have not enforced it in high pressure situations. Reason being - I did not want him to ignore the command. To this point, I have not given any command when he chases the birds. I was hoping he would have at least caught on to the fact that he will not catch them, so no need to chase them a couple hundred yards. I know he would not learn to be steady on his own, but a shorter chase would be a start until I get the finishing work done. He always returns and that is when I start with the commands again. I would put the birds away, but I would think I kind of need the birds to work on steadiness to flush.

I have him steady with a stay command and I can throw a bumper and then release him. I can even walk out and pick it up and return to him on stay. I should have probably used the whoa command for this training. This is all done with him standing, since I have not taught him the sit command. I was encouraged not to until I had him steady to flush and shot.

I tested him in the Southern MN NAVHDA Chapter test in Cresco, IA. First time I had ever attended any event of this nature. The pup performed well, but I failed on his track training. That did not go so well. He did not know what I wanted him to do.

[CraigM]

Chris, My Maggie (Rudy's Sister) is the same way. She does real well in the woods or short field. Get her in the tall stuff and she falls in behind me. I'm not worried about it. She needs to grow up a little more to be able to bull through that stuff. Sure are fun pups. Good luck with your training.

Craig

[SportFishin']

Craig,

Great to hear from you & maggie. Sorry I never got back to your E-mail at home but the better half had deleted it before I could respond back to you.

Yeah we were working on the check cord last night in the short grass and he is doing fine. Its the tall feild grass where he is sceptical but I guess it will come in time. I'm just really excited at these pups potential & the whole NAVHDA thing has me fired-up to go. I did the NAVHDA Handlers Clinic back in June and that was really a great learning tool on what happens when you either train your dog or you don't & you get a better insight to what the different test's are all about.

Rudy is 39lbs at 17wks I think the males are going to be huge. How big is Maggie so far? I bet she is really curly, she had the best coat closest to Hilda's coat. These pups NA to point is phenominal he points every living thing & just locks up hard too.

Thanks for the great pups DoubleGriff!

Later,

Chris

[CraigM]

Wow, 39lbs. Maggie is only 28lbs., I'm expecting her to be about Hildi's size. Her coat hasn't really changed much. Not curly at all. Just a little longer with more top coat that mostly hides the spots that she had. maybe we should get them together for some training this fall.

Craig