2 yr old GSP

[Dcup]

Hey guys I'm going to apologize ahead of time for my first post being long.

I got a GSP pup about a year ago when she was almost a year old. The guy I got her from was going to put her down because he couldnt sell her so I saved her (I was pissed when I found it out). She is my second bird dog, I had an English Pointer before her that died during a hunting trip (long story).

Back to my GSP; she has had little training for hunting and I am by no means a professional, but I am trying very hard. She is very obedient in the house and around other people, but when it comes time to goto the field she wants to do nothing but run. She is trained on commands: Whoa, come, sit, bring it, drop, lay down, etc.

I took her out last year just to get some experience for her and she actually did pretty well for having very little training. I have been working with her this summer and into fall in the backyard trying to hammer home the basics of pheasant hunting. When I am in a controlled environment (like the backyard) she is very respondent. She uses her nose well on planted dummies and retrieves very well. When I take her out to the field to use dummies, she wants nothing to do with them. All she wants to do is run. I have read a couple of books including one about the Delmar Smith method. I dont have access to using live birds, so I am kind of confused as to what to do to convince her that using the dummies in the field is fun and like what we do at home. I know that at this age (2 years old) a lot of trainers say that dogs are pretty much stuck in their ways. Is there anything I can do to work with her and get her going? She is very instinctful and intelligent, but I need to do something to turn her onto it in the field. Am I confusing her? Any help would be great.

Thanks.

 

[smizell]

Make sure you can get her to come when called or whisled in the field. You may need to use an e collar to help enforce that. After that I would say let her hunt. It may even help to hunt her with some experienced dogs. She needs to be on some live birds and then she will put it all together.

 

[Dcup]

Make sure you can get her to come when called or whisled in the field. You may need to use an e collar to help enforce that. After that I would say let her hunt. It may even help to hunt her with some experienced dogs. She needs to be on some live birds and then she will put it all together.

She is ecollar conditioned to come and whoa and responds well in the field. I guess its just a wait and see kind of thing. I pheasant hunt a lot so hopefully more experience will help her along.

 

[gsp4life]

take it easy with her. has she ever been on a live bird? if not i would take her out and see what happens. let her do her thing even if she runs it over and flys natural instinct should kick in. after that i would start her on a check cord of some sort and make her hold her points.

 

[birdshooter]

Dcup, Unfortunately you can't make a bird dog without birds. So what ever you can do to provide her with such, all the better.

Just for the sake of asking, what are your goals for her?

What I mean by that is what level of training do you wish to accomplish. Do you just want her to hold point till you come up on her and flush the bird or are you looking to further that to maybe steady to wing or steady to wing/shot?

That's fairly common for young dogs to just want to run when their given the opportunity. When she starts scenting game she will become more focused.

How well does she truthfully have the whoa command ingrained in her? Can you stop her at any time?

The Whoa command is going to be one of your most important commands you will teach her. She should be very solid on Whoa AWAY from birds before you use it around them. The reason being is that there can be no connection or confusion as to why she is being corrected should she try to break off a point and you correct her. You absolutely don't want the correction to be connected/confused with the bird itself.

It really sounds as if you have a good start on basic obedience and that is very important once you transfer everything into the field. But from what it sounds like she is in need of a healthy dose of birds and wild be at that. However you can manage it. You can't teach her to hunt, she either has it in her or she doesn't. Just go and hunt her, as I stated get her on as many birds as possible. Most of all be patient.

 

[Dcup]

take it easy with her. has she ever been on a live bird? if not i would take her out and see what happens. let her do her thing even if she runs it over and flys natural instinct should kick in. after that i would start her on a check cord of some sort and make her hold her points.

I took her out hunting last fall/winter and she was around birds quite a bit, even though the population has been cruddy. She pointed a few "dead scents" and held point a couple of times, but I wasnt really expecting a whole lot from her.

Dcup, Unfortunately you can't make a bird dog without birds. So what ever you can do to provide her with such, all the better.

Just for the sake of asking, what are your goals for her?

What I mean by that is what level of training do you wish to accomplish. Do you just want her to hold point till you come up on her and flush the bird or are you looking to further that to maybe steady to wing or steady to wing/shot?

That's fairly common for young dogs to just want to run when their given the opportunity. When she starts scenting game she will become more focused.

How well does she truthfully have the whoa command ingrained in her? Can you stop her at any time?

The Whoa command is going to be one of your most important commands you will teach her. She should be very solid on Whoa AWAY from birds before you use it around them. The reason being is that there can be no connection or confusion as to why she is being corrected should she try to break off a point and you correct her. You absolutely don't want the correction to be connected/confused with the bird itself.

It really sounds as if you have a good start on basic obedience and that is very important once you transfer everything into the field. But from what it sounds like she is in need of a healthy dose of birds and wild be at that. However you can manage it. You can't teach her to hunt, she either has it in her or she doesn't. Just go and hunt her, as I stated get her on as many birds as possible. Most of all be patient.

My main goals for her is to get her to hold point on scents until I come up to flush the bird. What she does after that I'm not too worried about at this point.

I can whoa her up at any time, unless there is some sort of distraction. She is getting better about ignoring distractions when she is whoa'd. I can get her to stand in one spot for upwards of 2 minutes while I pace around the yard, but when we get to the field, she doesnt stop immediately. She comes to me instead of stopping in her tracks, and then whoas.

I guess my biggest frustration is not having anywhere to use live birds. There arent really any places around me to train with live birds on. I take her out to some public hunting places in hopes of finding wild birds, but like I said before, the population hasnt been the greatest the past couple of years.

Thanks for the advice, hopefully just getting her some experience this fall helps out, but I wont quit working with her on the basics during the times that we arent out hunting.

 

[Dcup]

Just a little update for any of you wondering.

I have taken my dog out to some public land about 5 times in the past two weeks. We have been working on obedience in the field and trying to get on some wild birds. The obedience part is going great, except for her getting out to far in front of me and acting uncontrollable. She will respond when beeped (on the Ecollar, I never shock) coming to me.

We have had a hard time finding any birds, but just tonight we stumbled upon about a dozen birds, about half and half roosters to hens. One time I think she was tracking a scent or maybe a bird running and it flushed wildly. She didnt point, but I think this was due to the bird running.

We moved over to an adjacent field (by about this time its getting dark) and we saw several birds coming into the roost, cackling like crazy. I know she saw them, but I wanted her to smell them out. So we walked in, I made a point to walk directly where I had marked a couple of cocks flying in. She knew exactly what was going on, but she didnt want to use her nose, she wanted to hunt them by sound (and I think she had marked where they were as well). We walked in aways, and they started getting up about 40-50 yards out to our sides and front. She chased wildly. Now I know its early and the birds are extremely flighty, but is there anything I can do to get her calmed down and focus on finding the birds and holding onto them?

Let me know what you guys think.