Starting a dog on rabbits

Toad

Toad

Active member
Hear me out... :laugh:

I want to start my older dogs on rabbits. Britt and GWP. At this point, they pretty much ignore rabbits, especially cottontails. They might chase for 2 steps if they bump one, but then go right back to bird hunting with no scolding or input from me at all. Daisy, GWP, chased a jackrabbit at least a mile once about 5 years ago, but has not chased them since. I've never had a rabbit point from either one of them, ever.

I would really like them to point cottontails for falconry next season. I hunted my hawk dogless this season. It would be 10X more fun to run the dogs with the hawk next year.

I could wait for my hawk to teach them what we are chasing, but I think it would be better if I had "finished" rabbit pointers at the start of next season.

Neither dog was ever "broke" from rabbits. They just never showed much interest in them, and obviously I never shot any over them. Over time they just learned that rabbits were not part of the game.

In this situation, how would you introduce rabbits as game to be pointed? Should I run the dogs and shoot the next few rabbits they bump, and send them for a retrieve? I imagine they would catch on fairly quick... Or I could drag around and hide a frozen bunny and reward them for finding it. Those are the only two ideas I have...

My house is too full to get a new dog just for hawking, and besides, I felt awful leaving them behind so much this season. I really need to get my current dogs into pointing cottontail bunnies.

I imagine if I take them to a really thick brier patch and start shooting rabbits, the dogs would work it out pretty quick. But I thought if someone has a different idea, I'm all ears. Thanks all!
:cheers:
 
No ideas?

Well, I guess I'll try my idea and report back how it went and you all can benefit from my experiment. Seems like it should work, right? :cheers:
 
I'd say you're on the right track. Start shooting them hopefully you can get a couple to run out where the dogs can see em. My vizslas point about anything with fur on it. Or anything wild for that matter. The setter does not. They dont chase for very long at all so I've never tried to break them of it. But you can tell a bird point from a rabbit point. Most of the time. It's hard to train for. You can go buy birds to train your dog on. Hard to go buy rabbits to do the same. I'd say its going to have to come from field experience. Especially if they are older dogs.
 
yep just start shooting rabbits and they will start pointing them, just be careful if they break and chase bird dogs are faster than beagles lol
 
Good point, bobman. I think I'll run her on a check cord and have a friend do the shooting today. :cheers:
 
So far, so good. Daisy and I played fetch with a rabbit the hawk had caught. She definitely wasn't sure what to think about it at first. It took some teasing and happy talk to get her to pick it up the first time, and a lot of praise when she brought it back. After the first retrieve, she was all over it!

We hit the brier patch last Friday, and she was definitely more interested in going AROUND the briers than through them. If you saw this place, you would understand... But she picked her way through there very gracefully, and did manage to point a rabbit, even after we had marched through the place without her for an hour, pushing rabbits for the hawk.

I'm not going to say she's "made" as a rabbit dog, but she definitely understands they are now on the menu, and has pointed at least one. I actually think this might work next season!
:cheers:
 
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