Gun Dog Forum

Trekmoor

I'm so much into gundogs that if I couldn't have one I'd want a dog I could train as one. Having already had a couple of them my answer would have to be the border collie. They are just so willing to please and so quick to learn. They are natural hunters and many point pretty naturally too.

Bill T.

Trekmoor

The labs with this colouration I have seen have been very similarly marked - like mini rottweillers, but a little white may appear on the chest and paws. They were pretty attractive. As you probably know a small amount of white on the paws was the hallmark of one of the most famous old time labs, Ba...

Trekmoor

I have culled a couple of lab pups and a couple of G.S.P.'s , I could see they weren't quite "right." By that I mean healthwise. I would not cull for colour alone. When yellow labs first appeared many of them were culled or given away. Yet now they are happily accepted as being labradors with strong...

Trekmoor

I just found out today that the British K.C. has accepted for registration a litter containing labs of more than one color on an individual pup. For more than 40 years I have known of tri- colored labs being born. I even trained one as a guide dog. Most breeders have quietly "disposed" of these tri ...

Trekmoor

Bean, I'm not sure how this applies to your situation but I've trained several labs for what you call upland hunting and what we call "rough shooting." My situation was similar to yours, I lived high up in a block of flats in a town with no yard or garden and no game for much of the year. My labs we...

Trekmoor

I have had G.S.P.'s and Brittanies living in the house. As a general rule I've found the britts to be more "wired up" than most G.S.P.'s but it does vary a lot from dog to dog as well as between the breeds.

Bill T.

Trekmoor

Since I started this ball rolling it is only fair to say that in Britain we have retrieving problems with Brittanies. These dogs are all recent or fairly recent French imports. Most of these dogs are very good hunters and pointers, their pace is usually very good and their range is variable. They te...

Trekmoor

I can hardly begin to express my shock at reading this, all of the versatile or Hunt, Point , Retrieve breeds were designed for rough shooters or as you you call them hunters to shoot over with the dogs making any necessary retrieves. To do otherwise is to make them into the same dogs as pointers an...

Trekmoor

A tiny part of another thread caught my eye and puzzled me. I read that thread to mean that in some trials Britts can win and be placed without ever having to retrieve. Is this correct ? How do you properly assess a hunt, point, retrieve breed if it does not have to retrieve?

Bill T.

Trekmoor

Thanks for the info Gonehuntin' . I've only seen 3 or 4 dogs that would "freeze." Their owners all gave them away to pet homes. One of these dogs was a young black lab. He did everything very well and could have been a field trial dog , but for his mouth. He went free to a good home but the new owne...

Trekmoor

Phil, my own G.S.P. pup now 13 months has only two toys. A big hard knobbly rubber ball and a short length of thick rope knotted at either end. This has now been reduced to the rope only, he was driving us nuts by taking his heavy ball up the stairs in the house and then releasing it to bounce noisi...

Trekmoor

Phil, I'm not sure I've read your post as you meant to make it sound or not but don't leave bumpers , dokkens or any other training aid lying around for a pup to play with. They are not toys, the pup doesn't get to pick them up unless you are supervising/working on the pups retrieve. Sorry if I've p...

Trekmoor

Gonehuntin' - can you tell me what you mean by "freezing" please,? It's not a term used over here. I would consider a dog to be hard mouthed if it put the ribs in on a bird, the bird would not have to be squashed or mangled. That is the definition of hard mouth here - the ribs are in and there is no...

Trekmoor

I can perhaps add a little to Dons post. In Britain hard mouth still exists. It is more prevalent among the Hunt -Point -Retrieve breeds than among the labs and spaniels of working parentage. The labs and spaniels have had about a century more to be bred for soft mouth. Not too long ago a hard mouth...

Trekmoor

I see quite a lot of this breed here in Scotland. I.M.O. they are a little tougher in temperament than the majority of smoothhairs. They also seem to be keener on waterwork and on retrieving than most smoothhairs. I prefer the wirehairs.

Bill T.

Trekmoor

If Trigger switches off at 15 minutes then you switch off at 10 or even 5 minutes ! Stop while the dog wants to do more ! In this country the f.f. isn't used, its all down to the dogs enthusiasm. I know many trainers of less than enthusiastic dogs who would give their eyeteeth for a dog that would b...

Trekmoor

Hi Fox, I agree with the advice given. Your bitch is not neccessarily gun-shy but from what you have posted I think you have made her gun - nervous. Do not fire a gun of any kind near a pup or a dog that has not become gradually accustomed to gunfire at a distance. Personally I usually start with so...

Trekmoor

The book I mentioned covers most types of gundog work but from what I can only describe as a "British" point of view. The lady author does not use correction training, not as I understand it anyway. I still doubt the click/treats methods effectiveness at any distance. Phrases like "reduce the criter...

Trekmoor

I am not anti e- collar but I don't like this. A 3 month old pup is a BABY. According to the original post the pups owner is completely inexperienced in e- collar use. It is things like this that get the e- collar such a bad name. I sincerely hope this man has his mind changed for him!

Bill T.

Trekmoor

Roughshooter asked about clicker training or click/treat training. I tried this for the first time in my life only a few months ago. I am a pre-beginner with this method but it has already worked well for me. Clicker training can train a dog to do almost ANYTHING with no force of any kind being used...

Trekmoor

I just can't find that name, I've checked through one of the U.K. forums, no Greg V. Maybe he uses a different name over here?

Bill T.

--- "One toot and yer oot !!!" ---

Trekmoor

Thanks , I tend to think its mainly custom for the Brittany had setter and maybe pointer in its original make-up. Very dark pigment noses would maybe occur quite naturaly ?

Bill

--- "One toot and yer oot !!!" ---

Trekmoor

Just as long as a dog wants to work it's colour is of minor importance to me. I've noticed that in Europe and here in Britain the britts with fleshy coloured nose pigmentation are pretty well outlawed while in U.S.A. it is the other way around. Fleshy coloured is in, black or dark enough to appear b...

Trekmoor

Training your dog the F.F. would probably sort that out. If you don't want to do that find a clicker trainer and do it that way. I'm no expert at it by any means but I had a similar problem to yours with my G.S.P. pup just a couple of months ago. After some rudimentary clicker style training he now ...

Trekmoor

Sorry , I don't recognise the name GregV.

Bill

--- "One toot and yer oot !!!" ---

Trekmoor

Thanks,all of you. "Sticky" has a very different meaning here in U.K. when applied to pointing dogs. I was trying to ensure I didn't get confused between your usage of the word and its' meaning over here.

Bill

---" One toot and yer oot !!!" ---

Trekmoor

Ken, I must try to remember that one - it's brilliant!

Bill

--- "One toot and yer oot !!!" ---

Trekmoor

If a dog was reluctant to "road in on a bird" would you say it was "sticky?" I may have missed it but I didn't see that one in the list? Do you perhaps have another name for that behaviour?

Bill

--- "One toot and yer oot !!!" ---

Trekmoor

Grand daughter and mother both doing well. She is named Skye, after the island - or it might be the whisky! With Dale as her middle name, after my wife. My wifes' mother and father were Roy Rogers fans so they named her after his wife! The amber nectar has been slipping down well, I feel like a dog ...

Trekmoor

It sounds just about right to me too.

Bill

--- "One toot and yer oot !!!" ---

Trekmoor

Thanks for that, now if I can get my brain cell to wake up I'll start trying to memorize it!

Bill

--- "One toot and yer oot !!!" ---

Trekmoor

To my way of thinking if anyone should make a profit from a litter it should be the person who has put the money, the time, the effort and the thought into making the bitch into a dog that doesn't need to be boosted by any further words from its owner. Its' record under judges other than its owner s...

Trekmoor

I would find that very useful. Your methods and terminology are often new to me and I am often baffled. I have to try to reason out from the rest of a sentence or paragraph just what is being discussed. It's fun, it's interesting but it's sometimes aggravating too! :lol: Bill --- "One toot and yer o...

Trekmoor

Just 10 miles along the road from me lives a man who has won the British Hunt Point Retriever Championships several times with his G.S.P.'s we know each other well, have travelled to trials together etc.. I have had his line of G.S.P.'s for nearly 20 years now. He goes to tremendous lengths to mate ...

Trekmoor

Since joining this forum a short time ago I have noticed that U.S.A. pup prices are considerably less for well bred pups than we expect to pay in this country. I am going to rant a bit about the way prices spiral here and presumably in your country too. A breeder of good trial proven dogs has a real...

Trekmoor

I first saw an e- collar used about 40 years ago. It had only one level of shock and it was fierce! The modern ones are so much better, I've just bought one 'cos I can't run down dogs any more. I have used it on myself and feel nothing until level 4 out of 12 levels, I tried it on the soft skin on t...

Trekmoor

The interest in the great outdoors outweighs the interest the pup has in your retrieve article. If you don't want to go the F.F. route take the pup outside but to somewhere totally boring. A very quiet bit of parkland or even a carpark. Try upping the value of the retrieve article, bird wings or a s...

Trekmoor

If you are against this tail docking ban oppose it early and oppose it with every shot in your gun! A tail docking ban has recently come into force in Scotland and a "partial" one in England. The gundog folk did oppose it and so did many of the show folk. We were ridden over rough shod and are now i...

Trekmoor

Bywood, I've got a lot of sympathy for that point of view. I am old enough to not really understand computer usage, I'm very nearly computer illiterate. On the other hand I've read an awful lot of books! With the experience I've gained over the years I now disagree strongly with some of what I've re...

Trekmoor

Hard mouth can be induced in a dog but the difficulty always is, how do you know as a puppy buyer if the dog used at stud or the dam is induced hard mouthed or hereditarily hard mouthed? Not all breeders are entirely honest about this which is why, unless I know and trust a breeder, I would not buy ...

Trekmoor

Anything you let a dog do, you are training it to do.

Always remember which of you is out there with a nose in front of its face- do NOT overhandle!

Bill

--- "One toot and yer oot !!!" ---

Trekmoor

I will be very interested to read the answers to this question since in Britain we regard hard mouth as both hereditary and incurable. I've read about all sorts of "cures" but I've yet to read of one that actually works!

Bill

--- "One toot and yer oot!!!" ---

Trekmoor

I think it is difficult enough to breed healthy pups from healthy stock without deliberately breeding from stock with known hereditary defects.

Bill

--- "One toot and yer oot!!!" ---

Trekmoor

A show bred springer was my very first "gundog" he put me right off anything to do with showbreeding for a very long time ! About the best that could be said for him is that he was a fairly good retriever. I've trained a few show breds of various breeds since then and some have been pretty good but ...

Trekmoor

Go on Helen, treat yourself, you know you deserve it !

Bill

--- "One toot and yer oot!!!" ---

Trekmoor

I have no experience at all of working on quail but I know dogs can respond to bird calls. My brittany was hunted on wild grey partridge from about 3 months old, by 7 -8 months she'd listen carefully before being cast off to hunt. If she could hear the little alarm clucks they make she'd head for th...

Trekmoor

Thanks for all that cover trial information. Fascinating! Your trials are very different from ours! Not worse, not better, just different. Your trials are in some ways more similar to our tests but sound a lot more exciting and illuminating to watch.

Bill

--- "One toot and yer oot !!!" ---

Trekmoor

I've kept racing pigeons and I've worked dogs using pigeons of various kinds all my life. I've never taken ill and neither have any of my dogs. The dust in pigeon lofts can so I'm told cause illness. Just like you would with any other animal, keep things clean and you'll be pretty safe. Bill --- "On...

Trekmoor

Many thanks to all of you. I doubt if you can understand how difficult it is to get information on proper usage of the e- collar here in Britain. To my knowledge there is not a single book or video readily available on the subject. The people who do use them often do so incorrectly and this has led ...

Trekmoor

I am very inexperienced in the use of e- collars. My young dog has been trained the stop whistle and responds well at fairly close distances. At distances of about 60 yards + he does not always respond. I'm too old to run out and catch a dog like I used to do and hoped the e- collar could help. I ha...

Gun Dog Forum

Search found 1916 matches

Multi Colored Labradors

Brittanies, trials and retrieving

Brittany colours

spiraling puppy prices

using the e-collar