Gun Dog Forum

I got some quail to practice holding a point but it didn't go well so I rewatched my George hickox video and have decided to take a few steps back and do his fly away drill to establish a longer point without any verbal commands.
Will I be alright to use clip wing birds and fire blank and retrieve a live bird?

I don't know anything about his fly away drill, but the phrase "establish a longer point" and "clip wing birds" do not go well together in my experience.

The fly away is just planting a scent bird for the dog to point and if the dog breaks you throw a different bird.

Fly away drills are for geting your dog to point There is no need to have him retrieve at this point (no pun intended). If the dog is not steady to wing allowing him to break wil only add baggage later. what you want to do is point drills.Use a scent bird with mulltiple launchers . Place the launchers 10 yards from the scent bird and apart from each other. When the dog goes on point launch a bird then launch conssecutive birds at different intervals. This keeps the dog expecting another bird. Each bird he sees becomes a reward for staying still. in the beginning keep the intervals short then slowly increase the time you keep him there. Dont let him get bored. I shoot a blank gun and use tethered pidgeons so i can do multiple repititions with the same birds. Also i keep the dog on a check cord to keep the dog from catching the birds. Whe the drill is over just walk the dog away. once he is consistant you can add in the retrieve.

Thanks that is the straight forward information I needed and very helpful.