Training A Pheasant Dog to Shed Hunt

[cyclonenation10]

Hi All! I've just become the owner of a 9 week old golden retriever and was wondering if anyone has any experience with training these dogs to shed hunt? My number one priority is pheasant hunting, which is what we'll be doing for the most part, however I would really love if I can have a shed dog in the spring as well.

Does anyone have experience with training a dog to do so? If so, how were your results (i.e. did it drastically increase the number of sheds you found)?
Does doing so interfere with pheasant hunting/training at all? I've always just pheasant hunted my retrievers, and never had to worry about them differentiating between what we were hunting for (such as waterfowl, sheds, rabbits, etc.). How did you incorporate shed training into the training process?

Bottom Line, if it is something that can be done pretty easily with minimal extra effort (essentially an "overlay") of pheasant training, I don't see any negatives in doing so.

What's everyone elses thoughts, experiences, etc. ?

 

[Matt D]

Both of my current springers will also find sheds. I did nothing extra for training other then taking them out with me and when I saw one I would work them down wind of it and encourage them. Last year we found 63 sheds and the two dogs had 9 unassisted finds so basically smelled, found and retrieved a shed before I saw it. This year older dog has 6 already. Younger dog has been recovering from an injury so hasn’t been out much at all. We are at 58 so far this year total so a similar percentage. For whatever reason my dogs seem to be best the first few times out and then lose some interest. Since bird bunting is main focus I don’t mind that and figure any horns they find are bonuses and really about getting them exercise. Have seen no negative effects and last year went from shed hunting to birds at preserve back to sheds with no issue.