Chasing "tweety" Birds

M

Mo_GSP

New member
My shorthair has a bad habit of wanting to chase little tweety birds out in the field. This is not good, especially if she gets on a game bird (pheasant,quail) and ends up flushing them. How can, if I can, break her of this habit? She is young, just 15 months old. Thanks for any input.
 
I have never had a problem with any of my dogs doing this. But I know guys that did. They cured it with the aid of an E-Collar. Mine would chase deer, I cured that with one good zap from the e-collar. They all thought it was the deer that hurt them.
 
My Vizsla did and still does that occasionally. He is now almost 4 yrs old. I don't really see it as a problem for my dog. He most certainly knows the difference in both birds, and once he gets birdie on a Pheasant, Quail or Chukar, it is obvious what he thinks he should be doing. While he was a pup, I never stopped him from chasing or pointing anything other than four legged creatures. If it flew, (including grasshoppers, moths and butterflies) I would give him the whoa, and he was pointing all of them at an early age. I would be very cautious about using an e-collar when trying to control him against any type of bird. All dogs take an e-collar very seriously , and I would be concerned you may be teaching him that it is not good to chase anything that flies, including game birds. I too, use an e-collar, but mainly for the dogs safety and not to chase the four legged animals. At your dogs age, I would just verbally repremand him against the tweeties and encourage him when on game birds. I have to believe he will figure it out with time.....a lot of time on game birds.

Just my 2 cents worth. I hope this helps.

Paul
 
Pups and dogs that are bored will get tweety. I had one that really messed up her NAVHDA Natural Ability test chasing the little birds. This was the worst Pudelpointer re training and really the only bad one from that standpoint. The dog could not take any pressure in training. Eventually she matured and was a pretty good dog in the field. One of my best trackers.

I would try to discourage it without too much pressure on a young dog as it is a sign of prey drive and intensity. Most older dogs will point small birds if no big ones around. See more of this in summer and early fall. Those little field Wrens are hard to see when in the thick stuff and harder to shoot!
________
CITATION
 
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Not uncommon for young dogs to do this. Meadowlarks are especially luring to a young dog. As what others here have mentioned, most will out grow this once they are put on plenty of game birds and will eventually learn to just ignore them. They will learn eventually that those birds are not what you are after if YOU ignore the whole situation when it happens. If you must do something just get them to change directions by using what ever command you would use to do so and walk in another direction. They should give up the chase soon and follow you.

My older dog (11) will still occasionally point a robin in the yard. I think he does this to amuse himself:)
 
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Tweeties

Your dog will outgrow this. Maybe a little reminder from the ecollar if he does not stop when you say "no."
 
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Don't be hard on your dog. It takes ALOT of game birds to make a good dog. The more game birds your dog has contact with the less tweetys he will want to fool with. I don't think this the place to use your e-collar. patience and birds make for great bird dog.
 
Working with larger birds (Chukkar, Grouse, Pheasant,etc.) more often might help. Just a thought. Definitely focus on teaching her what the game is all about by hunting as many birds possible (like we all aspire to). Most likely, she'll grow out of it.
 
it's natural

but I would tell the dog NO or LEAVE IT when he chases them this is some thing you'll want to work on when you steady him to flush and shot anyway.
 
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