519vx
Member
I have two goldens, one that is 6 and one that just turned 1 year old. I've spent a lot of time working with the young one with quail, chukar, and pheasants. About a week ago, I had the young one out on her first hunt by herself (without the experienced 6 year old along). The young one did well, stayed close, listened, and finally as we were headed back to the truck, scented a bird, worked it several minutes and put it up for me. I was elated.
I've since hunted her with the 6 year old several times. When they hunt together, the young one follows the older one very closely often running right into her. I've shot several birds with the two of them together but want the younger one to hunt more on her own. So I took the younger one yesterday by herself. Just a few minutes into the hunt, she puts up a bird, I take one shot and wing it. It coasts a little ways and goes down in some tall weeds. I tell her "Get 'em" and "fetch em up". She runs over by me and jumps up on me. Like she was scared. I set her down and tell her to "find 'em" (all three phrases we practiced with in training) and she jumps on me again.
I walk over to where the bird went down, took a few steps and it flushes again but only flies 6 - 8 feet (busted wing) and lands again in the grass. The pup sees it, I tell her "find em" and she jumps on me again. No interest and wont even try to find the bird.
Frustrated, I take her back to the truck, we drive home and I get the older dog and we go back to the same area (I hate the thought of losing a bird). I let both out of the truck and like normal, the older dog hunts while the young one follows and bumps into her. Older one got on the bird scent and tracked it probably 200 yards to where it went on some other property I didn't have permission to hunt on.
So....what's with my young one? Had confidence a week ago, and none yesterday by herself but seemed fine when with the older dog in the field.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
I've since hunted her with the 6 year old several times. When they hunt together, the young one follows the older one very closely often running right into her. I've shot several birds with the two of them together but want the younger one to hunt more on her own. So I took the younger one yesterday by herself. Just a few minutes into the hunt, she puts up a bird, I take one shot and wing it. It coasts a little ways and goes down in some tall weeds. I tell her "Get 'em" and "fetch em up". She runs over by me and jumps up on me. Like she was scared. I set her down and tell her to "find 'em" (all three phrases we practiced with in training) and she jumps on me again.
I walk over to where the bird went down, took a few steps and it flushes again but only flies 6 - 8 feet (busted wing) and lands again in the grass. The pup sees it, I tell her "find em" and she jumps on me again. No interest and wont even try to find the bird.
Frustrated, I take her back to the truck, we drive home and I get the older dog and we go back to the same area (I hate the thought of losing a bird). I let both out of the truck and like normal, the older dog hunts while the young one follows and bumps into her. Older one got on the bird scent and tracked it probably 200 yards to where it went on some other property I didn't have permission to hunt on.
So....what's with my young one? Had confidence a week ago, and none yesterday by herself but seemed fine when with the older dog in the field.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
