Gun Dog Forum

I was wondering what type of duck is used in navhda testing. Also where do you normally get the ducks that you train with? And lastly, the blind that you test from for upt and ut test, what does it look like? Thanks again

I think your making this harder than you need to, i think a lot of people do! Teach your dog to retrieve whatever he's sent after. You will probably need a duck in the end, I'd get one during the hunting season, I doubt species is all that important. Guy I knew years ago completely trained his lab with retrieving dummy's, dog refused to pick up the first duck it was sent on, didn't know that's what he wanted. Another guy trained with decoy's. First duck he sent the dog after retrieved every decoy on the water, left the duck. My old Hannah was never trained on ducks but was on shot birds. I shot exactly one duck over her in her life and she retrieved it. If you hunt upland, you can teach it with pigeons, your dog may mess up the first few game birds it finds but it will not mess up the first game bird it retrieves! As I've never done it, you might try an experiment. Teach your dog to retrieve shot pigeons and see if you shoot a duck it will get it. I have an idea it will. What happens is you'll teach the dog to retrieve a shot object!

Nate, Someone posted on your upt post that northern chapter was having a training day. If you can't make it go to there membership list and make a few calls. Reach out people in your area will help. My understanding is you have never seen a upt test or a mock test . You need the help!!!

A duck is a duck is a duck.....

Good advice from Ms. Cage. Your local NAVHDA chapter will have access to training ducks and water on which to train. Watching another dog work will give you a mental picture of where you are headed with your pup. Remember, it's all fun.

In dire straights (no training ducks available.....dead or alive), it is possible to use fresh dead chukar or pigeons to get your dog started searching and retrieving in the water. Once we had a training day, and a fellow brought his own duck. It was a big, ugly, MEAN, Muscovy Drake that outweighed the Brittany who was supposed to retrieve it alive. Glad it wasn't the dog's first rodeo, and he really did a great job. Big applause for the dog that day.

We can't use Mallards here due to Wildlife Regulations, so usually we use Call Ducks which are a bantam domestic duck. They look like Mallards, but are about 2/3 the size. Great for training as they are calm, durable and energetic in the water if they are raised right. Your NAVHDA chapter will know the best source for ducks in your area.

Mallards are smaller than tame birds. Use them. They are available at many game farms.

When I was running Labs and needed ducks; I would go and feed them popcorn at the local park or golf course, , grab a couple, stuff them in a box, take them home, clip their wings and train my dog. After a while the wing feathers would grow back and they would simply fly away

Mallards work well.

reba wrote:When I was running Labs and needed ducks; I would go and feed them popcorn at the local park or golf course, , grab a couple, stuff them in a box, take them home, clip their wings and train my dog. After a while the wing feathers would grow back and they would simply fly away

Man, your setting Nate up to get busted with a game violation!!!

We have a couple local sale barns, that sell everything from expired hostess cupcakes to bulls. I buy several pigeons and quail there, and they sell a ton of ducks cheap.

Jim

Ms. Cage wrote:

reba wrote:When I was running Labs and needed ducks; I would go and feed them popcorn at the local park or golf course, , grab a couple, stuff them in a box, take them home, clip their wings and train my dog. After a while the wing feathers would grow back and they would simply fly away

Man, your setting Nate up to get busted with a game violation!!!

+1. That's a very dangerous thing to do. When you use wild birds to train, you need a receipt or the birds have to be banded or marked. Not sure how many laws that violates, but it's a few.

Never ever crossed my mind.

Most of these Mallards were from peoples back yards that didn't want to keep them any more.

They would just take them down to the park and let them go.

If approached by F&G, they would of needed to but me in a straight jacket, because I would have been rolling around on the ground laughing.

reba wrote:Never ever crossed my mind.

Most of these Mallards were from peoples back yards that didn't want to keep them any more.

They would just take them down to the park and let them go.

If approached by F&G, they would of needed to but me in a straight jacket, because I would have been rolling around on the ground laughing.

And they might have done that since you broke the law and thought it was funny.

Our club gets farm raised Mallards(though they could also be Call Duck they look about the same), nothing like a good quacking hen to help crank up the prey drive. Even if your local NAVHDA is too far to participate in training days, joining just to get access to their bird supply especially something odd ball like ducks is probably still worth the time.

Mind you once the dog has made the connection ducks = good, lots can be done crank prey drive and on water scenting , with just swamp romps. Once nesting season is done just take the dog out to a pond with lots of ducks and let it play. For a pup seed the dead bird somewhere easy and heap the love when they pick up the bird. Just that same as we did unstructured bird finding in the field the same is needed on the water, practice using their nose in a new context.

Then you apply structure.

When I trained my VC for his UT, the first ducks we found were small white farm ducks. The guys in my training group thought it was hilarious, but results were the same! Heck, I thought they were even better than mallards because they stood out so well in the dog's mouth -- you didn't have to squint to see if he actually had something in his mouth when emerging from the cattails at a great distance.

reba wrote:Never ever crossed my mind.

Most of these Mallards were from peoples back yards that didn't want to keep them any more.

They would just take them down to the park and let them go.

If approached by F&G, they would of needed to but me in a straight jacket, because I would have been rolling around on the ground laughing.

Understand that when you break a law concerning waterfowl, you have violated a federal law. Nothing to laugh about. A friend of mine was arrested by the Fed's for a prank waterfowl pic his friends posted on Facebook. Better take it seriously. Not sure how many laws your breaking: Hunting in a closed area. Hunting out of season. Over limit. Posessing a wild bird with no license or permit. Hunting in a park. Wildlife harassment. My guess is, you'd be into this thing thousand's of dollars in fines. Better hope no Federal Warden is monitoring this site.
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Never been able to find anything other than mallards. Not sure what you are training for exactly but if live ducks are needed to put down a track in the water and to chase, I would get a hen. My experience has been that the hens were a lot smarter than the drakes and used a lot more moves to try to lose the dog. Drakes just went back to the bank and tried to hide.