Gun Dog Forum

Sorry if I offended you but my sense of humor is warped sometimes. I have seen trainers recommend putting pups on wild birds and have put them on wild birds myself. Yes, it makes them birdy but no, they don't catch them. As I said, I trained a (couple of) GSPs and the one that I trained with pen rai...

That's very interesting. I guess I'm too cheap to pay a trainer to unlearn something!

Beautiful pup and it looks like you have been doing lots of work with him. It looks like he has plenty of prey drive and he's handlind the bird scent instinctively. Congratulations. I have a question: did the trainer have the pup try to get that close to the bird? It almost looked like he was trying...

That's a keeper!

I love pointing dogs, so that is what I hunt behind. I think it is a commonly heard misnomer that as we age we need slow close working dogs. I disagree with that completely if the intent is hunt wild birds. I think we need broke dogs which find, point and hold birds until we arrive, but otherwise t...

Truly a work of art. Congratulations.

I mentioned earlier that my pup jumped out of the back of a good Samaritan's pickup (he had picked the errant pup up and was returning it to us without asking me); the pup jumped out and blew his hip and had the femoral head removed-- so the last place to put a dog is loose in the pickup bed. Mine r...

I quit buying Amish birds. They are often from animal barns and they sometimes have lice. I bought some for $1 each once, stored them in my garage overnight, and it took $100 to get all the lice out of my house!

Thanks for the replies. Very encouraging. I took him out to run for the 1st time with the 4 wheeler yesterday (didn't want him to run with a horse because the other Brit ran right into a horse's foot right before that !). He pretty much outran the 4 wheeler so it looks good. I didn't know what to ex...

I have a 16 month old Brittany who showed great promise when field trialling and hunting. He was clearly an all age dog and won a 2 point derby stake, but handled nicely in the field.Unfortunately, after 3 good days of hunting in KS he apparently realized we were leaving. I turned to put my gun on t...

That question begs another: do you want a personal trainer or a boot licker? Are you going to train it yourself or have it trained? I'm your age and have Brittanys but have to say it helps to be in top shape! The key is to have a well-trained dog; they do the work and you stand there or walk slowly ...

RayG's method is what I used on my last GSP and all of my Brittanys and it works great. I never had an allergic reaction to my GSPs so can't help there. As far as the retrieving goes, after you have him coming when called and steady on birds you might consider force fetching. There's really no force...

Had 2 SportDog collars and neither lasted long. If you have to replace them they're no bargain. I got a used TriTronics and it's running great even though it's 15 years old or more. Got another TriTronics for those reasons. Collar Clinic is a great idea, as is eBay.

Awwwww! Great picture. Looks like the little guy is dominant now!

Hmm. :roll: Maybe a new thread is in order to discuss the use of e-collars on dogs that don't quarter or chase in their sleep?

AKC recently sent a newsletter. It had an article that said pointing dogs point in their sleep (according to researchers), and flushing dogs "exhibit flushing behavior" (according to researchers). I can't say that I've seen any of the 5 pointing dogs, that lived inside and I owned, ever point in the...

I've often wondered why Brittany people seem to be the only breed owners who are obsessed with dual championships. Doing that ensures that just about any registered Brittany will be good to go in either venue.

Poodles are definitely great hunting dogs; you have to have a tube of lanolin to keep the burrs out though. I hunted over a standard poodle that was the best flusher that I've ever hunted over; she did a windshield wiper imitation at 20 -30 yards and retrieved like a champion. That experience taught...

Testing my photo capability; probably nil!

I'm a veteran reader/lurker of this forum but haven't participated in any forums until this one; very few forums are without nasty bickering. This one seems to be very civil from my years of reading it. I have had bird dogs (GSPs and now Brittanys) for many years but didn't participate in field tria...

Hi, I guess it's kind of required of newbies to reply to the original post here, so here we go: I've been hunting since the '60s, am on my 5th bird dog, and started field trialing at age 59. I have an all-age pup and I'll probably need advice from some of you!

I wouldn't hesitate to train force fetch. The worst bird dog I ever had was a GSP and after I did force fetch training he gave me some amazing performances. It improves the whole skill spectrum. It also takes quite a while; varies from dog to dog. So if you're trying for a November opener you'd bett...