6 month GSP seems lazy

[fshbyfly]

Valhalla Puppy Class

I would recomemend heading out to Valhalla a puppy class on Saturday mornings. Each pup get work on 2 chukar and gets experience backing and being around other dogs. It's like 40 bucks and you can ask and stay as long as you like, it's very informal and Jeff runs the class based on age and experience of dogs. Puppy doesn't necessarily mean they are you but puppy in the sense of experience with birds. It's definitely the cheapest way to get out with birds and a pro

It's hard for those of us living in urban areas without access to private land and birds to get our bird dogs excited about hunting. The number one requirement for getting a gun dog up to snuff is exposure to birds.

I definitely recommend the puppy class at Valhalla. I've been taking my lab out there for a few months, and I can say it's the most valuable part of my training so far. $40 gets you bird exposure, controlled eposure to gunfire, socialization with other hunting dogs, training guidance from Jeff, and a couple of dead birds to take home each week for training.

Good luck, and hopefully I'll see you out there...

 

[Lanerjo]

I have tried looking into the Navhda chapter for Kansas City. Unfortunately, the only Navhda chapter anywhere near me is in Columbia, MO. This is based on the Navhda website chapter list.

My advice would be to take the pup out to park where there are pigeons, non-game birds etc... It doesn't really make too much difference what kind of bird your dog gets interested in at first. When the dog learns that the only birds you shoot and it gets to retrieve are pheasant and quail, it will start searching for those scents more and more.

I don't really think there is much to training a good bird dog. The basics, recall, sit, stay, whoa and lay. The dog will learn most everything else in the field on wild birds on it's own. Just be very consistent, require the pup to listen to the command the first time... GET THE DOG INTO BIRDS... Somewhere about 1000 birds would be my guess before the dog really becomes competent bird dog.