Training/hunting

Where I live (North western Indiana) the most prevalent bird hunting is duck hunting, primarily wood ducks, and later in the season, mallards. I know where to find a pheasant or two around home, and my son and I hunt near his home in central Illinois for pheasants. Also, we travel to Iowa and South Dakota every year for pheasants. It would be a rarity to find quail, but it has happened. Consequently, I do train my Lab on upland and waterfowl. I took him to a good professional trainer when he was 8 months old, and I am much of that man's opinion: The dog should have the desire and training to retrieve anything we shoot. He is now 19 months old, and he does in fact retrieve any bird I shoot, or any training dummy I throw, in the water or out. He has energy and prey drive to burn; a great desire to hunt. I think he may turn out to be the best hunting dog I've had (out of 6 dogs).
 
Rogue Hunter said:
Do you train/hunt your dog on multiple species...pheasant, duck, grouse?
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There are breeds of dog's that were developed for that very thing your asking. They are called a versatile breed of hunting dog. Two breeds that come to mind are German short hair pointers and the Brittany. I trained a Brittany years ago that done well on quail and pheasent. Done an excellent job retrieving ducks and geese. He was so good at hunting dead game I used him more than a few times to find deer that was lost from gun shot and bow wounds.

Trained a pair of German short hair pointers for quail and pheasent. Done real well pointing and retrieving. Never used them for duck hunting but I feel real strong they could have done well at it too.
 
With my dogs (Small Munsterlanders) I didn't train them for a specific game in mind (other than upland birds in general, I'm not much for duck hunting) but I do use my dogs to hunt everything.

A personal goal of mine is to bag as many different species with my dogs as I possibly can. So far they've helped me bag ruffed grouse, woodcock, sharp tailed grouse, prairie chickens, pheasants, bob whites, sage grouse, blue grouse, a few mallards and hungarian partridge. I'm not sure when I'll consider my goal complete, but it sure is fun chasing after a bunch of different species and I get to be in awe how dogs can figure out how to hunt different game in totally different terrain so effortlessly.
 
Well that's good !!! Real good !!! I am guessing most of the game birds you mentioned except for the mallards will hold for the point until you flush them ?
 
Moe said:
Well that's good !!! Real good !!! I am guessing most of the game birds you mentioned except for the mallards will hold for the point until you flush them ?
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It kinda depends really. Some hold tighter than others. But generally they'll hold for a flush usually.
 
Not really. To be specific I train for waterfowl and upland. My dogs don't seem to care if its a Pheasant, Grouse, or Quail. I've shot sharpies when duck hunting and they didn't seem to mind!
 
I wouldn’t say I train different for species. Have my 5 th lab, non pointing. Have hunted her 5 falls. We start with mountain grouse to avoid snakes , then move to prairie grouse and Huns in late September. We usually get a few dove before they leave Montana . A few duck hunts before pheasants in earnest. Last year tried bobwhite in Kansas, and for the 4 falls prior we did mearns, scaled and gambels in the New Mexico and Arizona winter !!! Like most dogs if you expose them, they will adjust!
 
I have to push my German wirehair off our front deck to take a wiz because he is typically on point on some sort of bird. Good bird dogs are happy with any type of bird hunting and adapt naturally.
 
Huede said:
I have to push my German wirehair off our front deck to take a wiz because he is typically on point on some sort of bird. Good bird dogs are happy with any type of bird hunting and adapt naturally.
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Neither of my dogs do that at home for whatever reason. Except for a pair of mourning doves that hangout under my bird feeder. But any other birds, they don't seem to care. They must know we never shoot birds that tiny so why bother haha

Now rabbits and squirrels are another story. They hunt them in my yard but I think that's just for fun. I've never shot a rabbit in my life and the last squirrel I shot I was probably 12.
 
I hunt WI and SD with my GSP.
Ducks, grouse, woodcock, sharps/ prairie chicken, pheasant, doves, and geese.
All wild birds.
 
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