When to steady 'em up?

[BellaDad]

I keep hearing conflicting viewpoints here and as a relative newcomer to the forum it is confusing the heck out of me. The two main points:

1. Don't push your dog too quick, let them build their bird drive, don't put too much pressure on them when they're young. Let them hunt a full season before trying to steady them up.

But I also tend to hear:
2. Don't shoot birds over your dog if they're not doing the right things. You shouldn't reward a dog with a killed bird if they're breaking point, flushing the bird, etc.

So how do these mesh? I mean obviously all of you guys aren't taking a new dog out into the field and passing on all of your shots but without some direction the dog doesn't know what you want.

What is wrong with telling a dog to whoa when you walk in on a flush? I'm not saying they need to be 100% steady to fall but I'd like a dog that is somewhat steady to at least shot before I go hunting so I don't have to worry about something bad happening. How do I keep hearing stories about guys hunting over year old and younger dogs if they aren't somehow steadying them up a little bit?

[Ridge-Point]

I hunt my dogs as soon as they can physically handle the hunt I am going on and are gun conditioned.

All of my dogs have been hunted before they had any Formal bird training done. They make alot of mistakes to start, but if it's a good dog he will learn game quickly.

As long as you get them into birds and shoot some birds for them to retreive, there really is no reason to do any formal steadyness training.

I like to break all my dogs steady to wing and shot, but I usually wait till they are 2 or 3 years old, thats just the way I do it. It's safer in Chukar country to have a dog Steady through the fall. I had a pup fall off a 30 foot cliff this last season chasing a bird, he is lucky that was a small drop compared to most, he bounced right up and had no injuries.

Justin

[Benny]

Personally I would recommend mixing things up in the field. The purpose of letting your dog be a pup is letting it run and bump birds to understand that the birds always win. No you don't spend a whole season letting the dog bump birds and having a good laugh...that would destroy a true hunter inside and out, probably leaving them in tears at the grocery store looking at the price of a Cornish game hen.
What you can do is have a day for play, and have a day for training. Build that knowledge of the birds, and do your best to be patient and allow them to teach themselves. It wont hurt to have a gun with you, because your dog might lock up without any help at all. You should be ready to reward.
After a bit of this, go out with a buddy and get your dog on the CC. He'll/She'll be pissed that they can't run wild, but if you're in a birdy spot and they scent up that bird, you snug 'em up. Your buddy moves in and flushes and shoots.
This is all POST-Gun introduction stuff. Gun shouldn't even be in your hand until your dog is birdy as heck and has been properly introduced.

Just my $0.02

[BellaDad]

So, if you had a 7.5 month old that was too young to hunt last season but has plenty of time to get ready for the next season how would you handle?

She's a nutjob for anything the flies that she can see, but is really coming around on her scent pointing. I pop the bird as soon as she scents and then even blinks an eye.



I did have a problem last week though, popped the bird and it went up and landed back on the launcher. Dog had broke toward the launcher and stopped about 7 feet away or so when it came back down. She is solid as a rock when she sees the bird, but I grabbed the CC and flushed the bird up and it flew straight at the dog. Well needless to day Bella got herself a mouthful of pigeon butt feathers. Kind of funny b/c it was a white pigeon and she just looked at me like "what?" when she landed.

[Ridge-Point]

The origonal question was how can you hunt a dog that hasn't had steadyness work. The answer is wild birds will steady a dog up if exposed to them properly. Not everyone hunts with a dog that is steady to even the shot. Many birds have been shot over pups that break on the flush or maybe even a little sooner. The key is shooting birds for the dog at the right times.

So, if you had a 7.5 month old that was too young to hunt last season but has plenty of time to get ready for the next season how would you handle?

It just depends on what you want to do with the dog. Some people have success breaking their dogs at young ages, I don't like to do it because I think it adds to confusion. I like birds to teach my dog how and when to point. Too many launchers can make dogs false point, too many pen raised quail take the point out of a dog, too much training on birds can make a dog bored. I also don't like to half way train a dog, If I am going to steady my dog, he is going to be steady from that point on.

Now some dogs might get into a bad habit of running birds up in the first hunting season, I personally like to know which dogs those are for breeding purposes. If they start getting into that habit you just need to get some birds shot for them in a controlled environment, that will usually solve the problem.

If my dog was 7.5 months old and was getting ready for this coming hunting season I would start by teaching the dog to handle. I will just take the dog for a run and teach him to stay to the front (I run my dogs dragging a check cord every single day, keeping them working to the front). I might plant a few birds every month or so just for bird intro purposes and gun intro (this also helps them keep hunting hard on our daily runs, just enough to keep them interested). I'd work on come, and I might teach the dog to stand with a check cord (off birds). I would probably work on retrieving, then advance to frozen birds. After that I would shoot a few birds for the pup and let him go get them. I usually incorperate this stuff into my Daily run with the dogs, but 95% of the time I am just letting the dogs run. If you have any problems with the dog, they will pop up in that period of time and you can work with the dog according to his needs.

If you did all that then you would have a dog that was ready to hunt wild birds. Don't shoot the birds he busts them out, but if he stands long enough for you to get in front of him then take the bird. As long as he is waiting for you then you should be fine.

Just the way I do it.

[BellaDad]

Met up with my NAVHDA group this weekend and asked the same question. We decided to shoot a bird over the dog and see how she handled it. Note* - Never been intro'd to a shotgun but hasn't shown even a hint of hesitation with a blank gun, but had no issues with it.

We ran her on a few birds, ended up shooting 2 over her. I kept my eye on the dog when the flush happened, she kept her eye on the gunner (it was something new to her I assumed). She stayed put until the shot. He knocked the bird down, she ran to it, picked it up, and ran over and dropped it at my feet.

She's got a good nose, and naturally stops when she scents a bird. I'll work more on this but great progress so far. Should I now progress to consistently killing birds over her when she does it right? I'm trying to figure out what a good next step is at 7.5 months.

[BellaDad]

Let me ask a side question, but I appreciate help with the question below first.

The first bird we shot over my dog, it flushed, the gunner shot and winged the bird but did not kill it. The dog ran to fetch it but the bird was up and walking around. She slammed on point as soon as she saw the bird walking. The gunner told me that the dog should have fetched the bird, I went in and flushed it again and it flew up again so he killed it.

That being said, how would you expect you dog to handle? The bird was definitely crippled but flushed before I even got to it. So the dog was right in a sense I guess. Thoughts?

[RayGubernat]

BellaDad -

7.5 months is VERY young for a bird dog. I would say, based on your previous posts, that your dog is doing extremely well, but I believe it is working on genetics here and will soon learn to bust and chase and catch birds if you continue on the course you are on. The puppy is doing the right things because its breeding is telling it to. as it gains expereince, it's desire to chase and kell will overcome its breeding if you do not sahpe, mold and reinforce it.

My suggestuion is to leave the birds alone for the next few months(it will soon be nesting season anyway) and concentrate on yardword, heel/whoa and come drills and such. Next August/September, your dog will be ready for more bird work and will also be ready for more structure and discipline and pressure. It will still be a puppy, but if you do the yardwork right, it will be a much more seamless intro to birds, and you will have installed the means to control that desire and use that desire to mold and shape the dog into the kind of bird dog you want.

Oh and I think your youngster did just fine by slamming into a point on that wounded bird. I would be ecstatic if that were my pup. The guy who told you the dog should have retrieve was... I could say he ain't much of a trainer... but I will just say he was wrong, IMO. He obviously ain't much of a gunner either. I might have told the gunner he was a crappy shot and should have killed the bird outright for the puppy for crying out loud. But then I care more about the dogs than some guy's feelings. He knew it was a young dog and that it was it's first bird. He should have killed it dead or handed the gun to someone who could.

I would also have been very glad that a young, inexperienced puppy didn't dive in to a wounded bird and get spurred or beat up by the birds wings on its first or second bird experience. Your pup did phenomenal and you both got lucky.

Don't push your luck.

RayG

[BellaDad]

I see where you're coming from and always appreciate an outside view. Tell me though, how is hunting a dog a couple times a month at this age any different than planting a few birds? I'd assume the exact points you made above would apply as well.

[RayGubernat]

BellaDad -

YOu can certainly do some training while you are hunting, but you can't really hunt when you are training.

For me the biggest difference is that when I am training, I have a plan... and set out birds, or whatever else, so as to execute that plan. A training exercise should be controlled, scripted and orchestrated to yield the desired result ...a postive outcome. It is, or should be a structured environment where you, the trainer drive the process and have a planned response for the expected action(as well as a well thought out Plan B... just in case). Knowing what is about to happen, and when and where, tends to improve one's timing.

You can't usually do that when hunting. It is a relatively unstructured environment where you must react to whatever happens. Not knowing what is happening , or when, tends(at least for me) to result in much less perfect timing.

RayG

[Sharon]

Good stuff Ray.

[jgf@gratiot]

Depends on what your trying to accomplish. Seems to work good for me to keep a handle on them when they are young and try and help them out, put them in likely covers that birds are instead of letting them fly around like an idiot, keep birds on their mind, and if they point long enough for me to get a shot, shoot the bird for them, everyone has different theories on this, but to me this is what fires up and makes a birddog, not working them on a cord in a birdfield. Even if they go in with you this part of being a pup, it doesnt happen overnight, when they are ready you can steady them up more. Also try and incorportate some yard days as needed, they should perform better liberated birds as it is a controlled situation, however they are not mastering the handling of a wild bird in its native habitat by doing this, sort of like a basketball player can be great in open gym then when the real thing comes things are different, its sort of a give and take, and one day it starts clicking for them when hunting. If they just want to run up birds, let em, put pup on a check cord, let him run up a bird, and once the bird is up, stand on the rope, might take a bit but he will learn it ain't no fun hittin the end of that cord and will start pointing because he wants to. DIfferent strokes for different folks, good luck, have fun, be patient!

[Gordon Guy]

In my Opinion, when training steadiness you want pup only on birds in controlled situations and off all wild birds where there is no control of the situation. The handler needs to get the idea of steadiness through to the dog in a controlled environment and then move to actual hunting. Doing steadiness training and mixing in free running on wild birds was, for me, frustrating because all the rules I've been trying to teach the dog just went out the window. It set me back several weeks in the process. I would suggest make that dog steady before you go back to wild birds so you can reinforce steadiness while you hunt and the dog knows why he's being corrected. A disciplined dog requires a disciplined handler.

The steadiness process can be hard on some dogs so that's why you want them older so they can take the pressure of training.

With a young pup of 7 months I would take them hunting and shoot birds for them if they at least flash pointed or the bird was flushed by actions other than by the pup but not if they ran them up purposely. Everyone does it differently.