frustrating

[boombaby]

iv posted questions in the past and have gotten great responses. so my new question/concern is this.

i have a femal V, little over 9mo old now.... been getting her on as many birds as possible. i take her to a trainer who pops pigeons for her about once to twice a week and to the farm for wild phez about once a week. my concern is her drive....it seems to take a while for her to get going, some days are great and she seems to be ready from the start...others, it takes a little bit of time...if she finds a bird she turns it on, but if we dont find one within 30 min, she starts to get less focused. and little things start distracting her, like deer poop or tweety birds ect....at what age does it just click and the field turns into business. she seems skittish with new places or new fields as well for the first 10 min or so.

also, distant sounds seem to make her nervous, such as an airplane or shotgun shots, barking dogs....somtimes she just shuts down for no real reason? (although rare)...if she hears these things it takes alot of convincing to get her hunting again and at times she wont start back up. perhaps im worrying too much, and i know i do at times since she is my first gundog. she is gun cond to starting pistol.

the trainer seems to think shes doing just fine and improving every day. however when he sees her shes finding a bird about every few min and the session only lasts so long.
any personal experiences with a pup like this. any tips on how to get her going with higher drive. she loves hunting dont get me wrong, just not a machine yet.

 

[V-John]

iv posted questions in the past and have gotten great responses. so my new question/concern is this.

i have a femal V, little over 9mo old now.... been getting her on as many birds as possible. i take her to a trainer who pops pigeons for her about once to twice a week and to the farm for wild phez about once a week. my concern is her drive....it seems to take a while for her to get going, some days are great and she seems to be ready from the start...others, it takes a little bit of time...if she finds a bird she turns it on, but if we dont find one within 30 min, she starts to get less focused. and little things start distracting her, like deer poop or tweety birds ect....at what age does it just click and the field turns into business. she seems skittish with new places or new fields as well for the first 10 min or so.

also, distant sounds seem to make her nervous, such as an airplane or shotgun shots, barking dogs....somtimes she just shuts down for no real reason? (although rare)...if she hears these things it takes alot of convincing to get her hunting again and at times she wont start back up. perhaps im worrying too much, and i know i do at times since she is my first gundog. she is gun cond to starting pistol.

the trainer seems to think shes doing just fine and improving every day. however when he sees her shes finding a bird about every few min and the session only lasts so long.
any personal experiences with a pup like this. any tips on how to get her going with higher drive. she loves hunting dont get me wrong, just not a machine yet.

She is a baby. Only 9 months old. Can't expect her to be a "machine" yet. I don't know that she has made the connection between the bird and the whole process of hunting yet.
Have you shot a bird for her? Has she had a bird in the mouth yet?

As far as the distant noises, how are you reacting when she hears them? If it were me, I would just ignore them and continue to do what you are doing. It sounds like you are doing everything right. Don't get in a hurry and let her grow. Remember, Vs as a whole, are a bit slower in maturity. Don't press it too much or you might make this not very fun for her and she will really shut down.
Keep it fun, keep the training sessions short and put her in a position to succeed.
Dammit, this is supposed to be fun for the both of you, right?

 

[conobirds]

Keep it fun, keep the training sessions short and put her in a position to succeed.

V-John is spot on!

When you go to the farm let it just be about exposure. Any wild birds she finds are just a bonus.

 

[519vx]

I had similar issues with my pup on the distance noises, including gunshots. There is a hunt club not far from my house that has/had sporting clays a couple of nights a week. They also have a big flight pen where they raise their birds. What I did a couple of nights a week was walk my pup (leashed at first) right up along the flight pen and encourage her to focus on the birds. She loves birds, so it got her immediate attention when there were some close ones that she could see and smell and watch flush just inside the fenced area. At the same time, in the background were the guys doing their sporting clays.

Initially for the first several times, she would react to the shots, but soon was so intrigued by the birds that she ignored what was going on in the background. Haven't had any issues since then.

 

[boombaby]

i think i just was over doing it...i had a lot of time off from work the past couple weeks and i think i just took her out too many times for too long...will be working the next four days so she should get a good break in and i hope she gets back into it next week.

 

[BritChaser]

Maybe too much training. No worries.

 

[boombaby]

been taking it easy on her since i last posted, and she is improving....however she still has her strang moments. my latest example is this. i took her out to the NAVDHA training grounds yesterday. she ran with another members two wirehairs and had a blast, later that day i took her to the farm. first field she did fantastic, found and pointed two roosters adn we moved on. next field she hunted hard and at the end she seemed spooked again and wanted back to the jeep....then today i took her to the training grounds again just the two of us. no pressure just out walkin lookin for birds...again she starts out good, then half way through she stops and is spooked, i call her to me and we leave the area and she starts hunting hard again.....still safe to call this a phase?