Indoor Hunting Dogs

Carguy2Banker

Carguy2Banker

Well-known member
This questions is for anyone that has an indoor family pet, that also is your highly driven and skilled 4-legged hunting partner.

How aware are they to knowing your routines and when it's a hunting day? What action triggers them? How excited (or annoying) do they get, even if others I'm the house are still sleeping?

I try to be as discreet as possible, for as long as possible to avoid this excitement, but eventually I have to put on hunting pants and there is no controlling the whining, panting, jumping, etc. after these go on. Anything blaze orange does it also. She will pick up my hunting vest and parade around, whining, if this is sitting out anytime she sees it.

Most days, she had to go into the dog box long before we leave, just so she didn't wake everyone by following me around everyone and being overly excited and vocal.
She doesn't sleep in my bed often, and on the rare occasion that she does, she avoids any contact and likes her space. However, if I lay hunting clothes out the night before, she always sleeps on the bed touching me. I assume so she doesn't sleep through my departure. 🤣

Is this common behavior in your households?
 
Mine are not too bad in the off season. They will calmly watch me until I put my boots on. Then they get excited. They even get noticeably more excited when I put on lace ups compared to slip Ons. But when the weather gets cool, they go crazy every time I walk into my hunting room. Then they get crazier if I touch a tracking collar. Having dogs in the house is a pain, but the rewards are worth it. From the comedic, to the sadness to the greater bond. I've only let my dogs in the last 20 years or so. Now I feel a sort of sadness maybe even shame for all the ones I didn't.
 
Just finished week of deer hunt 4 for 5 hunters when ever I open safe door mine are ready to go when he sees me get my vest out zest the GSP wears blaze orange neck gaiter when we go he’ll find it and bring it to me
 
birddude said:
Mine are not too bad in the off season. They will calmly watch me until I put my boots on. Then they get excited. They even get noticeably more excited when I put on lace ups compared to slip Ons. But when the weather gets cool, they go crazy every time I walk into my hunting room. Then they get crazier if I touch a tracking collar. Having dogs in the house is a pain, but the rewards are worth it. From the comedic, to the sadness to the greater bond. I've only let my dogs in the last 20 years or so. Now I feel a sort of sadness maybe even shame for all the ones I didn't.
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It's changed for me over the years as well, I grew up under the thought of you can't keep good hunting dogs inside it'll ruin them. The older I've gotten the more they've been inside the house and the truck cab haha. My dogs now all are inside at night if not most of the day also for a couple of them. I even packed my truck different on a trip home from SD last year so they could ride in the backseat because it was damn cold and they'd hunted hard for 4 days in a row and weakness got me i guess. Other than the dang hair and dust I enjoy them in the house nowadays
 
Yeah me dogs get excited if, in the house, I touch my shotgun, touch my truck keys, put my dog whistle on etc etc.

How the heck do my dogs get exited, come running when they are asleep and I barely touch a jar of peanut butter in the kitchen cabinet?? :unsure: :unsure: :unsure: :unsure:
 
During the season, once Ace realizes I haven't gone to the office, he starts following me around pretty closely. Then if he sees me carrying anything - gun, his collar, boots, whatever - he immediately gets real excited & hyper. When I'm in the bedroom changing into hunting clothes, he's recently begun getting on the bed & wanting to stand on it with his front paws up on me. He's weird.
 
My dogs know. But they also know that we normally leave first thing in the morning. They pay attention and notice that the gear is coming from the basement to the laundry room/mud room, the collars getting charged, the water jug getting filled, etc. They don't really get excited until the alarm goes off the next morning. The every-weekday, same-time-as-always alarm is one sound, the one-off alarm for any other day of the week is different. I'm convinced they know the difference. The older one won't eat unless I add a little "incentive" to her food--she's just too excited or too afraid of being left. They make it pretty hard to put on my boots. They get loaded first, otherwise there would be a lot of whining at the door.

Like most people I suppose, when I pull a gun from the safe I check it. Back when I hunted with an A5, the sound of the action slapping closed after being checked would bring my lab from anywhere in the house. She would look at me with such anticipation in her eyes. Opening and closing a SXS does produce quite the same sound.
 
Whisky just 'knows' something is up. It really hits him if I start getting gear out. This also goes for boating in the summer. He knows something is up when we start getting the cooler out, etc. He gets super excited if we ask him "Do you want to go?" or "Are you ready to go?" He just follows me around at a perfect HEAL position. He just knows...

He is 100% an inside dog. We have a doggy door he uses. He has his own bed, but also sleeps in "his big bed" with us at times.
 
They are such smart creatures.

-if I get in the shower first thing...depressed, downtrodden, puiny. Won't get out of his bed. Knows I'm headed to work or church.

-if he sees the blaze orange or anything camoflage, hunting pants, he knows. I think he smells the remnants of birds/the field on them.

-once I pick up the e-collar, its a full on anxiety attack. Food and all else becomes an afterthought
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
During the season, once Ace realizes I haven't gone to the office, he starts following me around pretty closely. Then if he sees me carrying anything - gun, his collar, boots, whatever - he immediately gets real excited & hyper. When I'm in the bedroom changing into hunting clothes, he's recently begun getting on the bed & wanting to stand on it with his front paws up on me. He's weird.
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My concensus- Springers are weird
 
I have no doubt that dogs recognize items as part of the hunting attire, but I feel they mostly know due to our body language. They don't have a wide vocabulary and rely on other cues to discern what's happening. For Sage, it's always been the socks that set her over the edge. I always wear short socks aside from hunting or snowblowing/shoveling, but the second I start pulling on longer socks, the jig is up.
 
As soon as I go down to my shop and zipper a gun case. Put on any piece of my hunting clothes. Put on a hat. Take his GPS collar off the charger (it beeps). Open the door to my hunting clothes closet.......
 
Well... After reading all of these responses, I guess I just have to live with this crazy mutt! It doesn't sound like she's "broken" after all.
 
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