duck dog Questions?

[TheAsian]

I am a beginner at training a duck dog. my dog is a year old and is good at retrieving a ball but i would like to know if anyone has good tips on how to train a dog to retrieve ducks. Also any good videos or books i could watch or read? Thanks for the help!

[winniewalleye777]

The first absolutely necessary thing is to make sure they love water. I had a problem with getting my lab to enjoy the water, but after she turned 2 she really started to enjoy it. I would start with retrieves of a ball with just a few steps into the water, moving up to longer retrieves where the dog starts swimming. Then move up to a dokken dummy to add a little weight and a larger object to the retrieve. To help in a hunting situation, make sure your dog knows the "stay" command. It is the worst to have a dog take off into the water when you have a flock of greenheads locked in. One more important thing is to make sure you dog avoids the decoys on retrieves. Just takes a lot of practice.

[tealitup]

If you have not done so - introduce the dog to a gun. You might want to do a search on FM pages to see how. Just take it very slow.

[PikeBayCommanche]

Things I value in a great duck dog would have to be these things.

-Steadiness. A good duck dog must be calm and alert to the action in the sky just like you are.

-Drive to retieive

-Handling ablity. They are never going to see all the downed birds so the ability to handle them to downed ducks is one of my favorite things to see.

Of course training a waterfowl job is much different than training a dog for upland game and definately takes more time and experience. Just take it one step at a time. Make sure he is very obeidient first, it makes everything so much easier.

[ZEEK1223]

My advice to you would be to get out as much as possible. Dont expect too much out of them right away, there is a learning curve. You will be surprised how much they will pick up naturally. I will also stress getting the dog used to the gun. Even if you think they are completely used to the gun. The duck blind/boat can be a very confined space, with guns swinging around shooting close to the dog can really freak them out. Also I like to use a retrieving dummy for work and a ball for play, making sure every time you throw the dummy that they retrieve it. Most importantly just be patient, my dogs first water retrieve he he got tangled in the decoys. He swam all the way pulling two decoys along with him. I was nervous because it was affecting his swimming ability. But he made back, there is something to be said about your dogs first retrieve, very proud moment.

[2 DA GILLS]

One more thing that needs to be taken into account later in the training process, make sure your dog has retrieved an actual duck before its first official hunt. A ball, bumper, dummy or whatever you use for training is not the same as an actual duck. Sometimes it is not an issue, but your dog may refuse to retrieve an actual duck, even it has retrieved 10,000 bumpers from the water.

Another thing that was already mention is to do the proper decoy introduction, if you are going to hunt over decoys. I have a serious training hurdle to overcome this summer with my dog. I had done limited decoy intro and he had two bad decoy experiences during the hunt and he refuses to retrieve through decoys now.

[TheAsian]

winniewalleye777 my dog loves water. but i am having a real problem teaching him the stay command. Any tips?

[TheAsian]

 Originally Posted By: TheAsian

winniewalleye777 my dog loves water. but i am having a real problem teaching him the stay command. Any tips?

[RiverRunner]

TheAsian,

The best command for STAY you can teach a duck hunting dog is the PLACE command. Make yourself a stand about 2 feet high and about 2 feet by 3 feet. Later on you can even use a piece of old carpet once they understand the command. My dog wasn't the greatest at staying in one place until I taught her this. The platform gives them a visual place to jump on and sit, which makes it easy for the dog to understand. The Staying put will come with this command and translate to when the dogs off the platform.

To teach it put your dog on a leash and walk him over to the Platform and command PLACE. Show your dog you want him to jump on the platform. Once on the platform have the dog sit and stay for a minute or two. The dog doesn't leave the platform without you giving a release command (Come,Heel,Fetch). If the dog jumps off command PLACE and put them right back on your Platform. Repeat this for a couple 5 to 10 minute sessions over a couple days. After youv'e done this quite a few times your dog will understand the PLACE command and you should be able to do this off leash.

To enforce the command either use an E-Collar or long lead you can grab. E-collars probably the easiest and most effective. If the dog jumps off the Platform command PLACE and Nick the dog with the E-collar. The dog jumping back on your platform shuts the correction off. With a long lead grab the lead, heel your dog and command place. Both will get your point across fairly quickly. After about a week my dog was better at the Stay command both on and off the platform.

Hope this helps.

Keep the platform this will come in handy when steadying your dog. When you go duck hunting either bring your platform with you or define a spot in the boat where dogs Place is.

[TheAsian]

Everyone,

Thanks for the Tips!

[BeerHunter]

The one tip that i Found to be most helpfull, other than the place and stay command, is to

Put out decoys and throw a dummy with a duck wing or even an entire duck into the decoys so he or she will start to understand the difference.

If they can understand the difference between decoys and ducks it just makes it that much easier.