WILD BIRD OR PIGEONS FOR TRAINING?..

[GUNDOGS]

@Tommyboy72..thanks alot for taking the time to explain your training..i am jealous you have access to so many birds ..i sure hope to move so we can as well..we dont get out as much as we would like to..i am a very open minded person and i think theres more than one way to "skin a cat"..so again thanks i have learned alot so far from people like you!!...ruth

@coveyrising64..thats one thing i never thought to do is to NOT use the checkcord with the launchers to create a "real" wild bird situation..like i said i know everyone has THEIR WAYS of doing things but i cant get enough of hearing peoples methods, it just seems to make sense to take it ALL in..thanks..ruth

[tommyboy72]

Ruth it is actually easier for me to train on wild birds than it is on pen raised. My closest pen raised birds are 80 miles away which means I have to drive down and pick them up which is time out of my day, there is the expense of gas there and back, expense for the purchase price of the birds, expense for feed and water, time out to care for the birds and then I still have to drive out in the country to train on and shoot any pen raised birds. It is much easier to drive 5 miles out into the country to a 15,000 acre private ranch I have year round access to with wild quail, load up the dogs and the blank pistol and train like that or to drive 10 miles and take the dogs and blank pistol and train on thousands of acres of private CRP ground I have access to on wild pheasant. What works for me may not work for some. I don't need nor do I require as much control as some trainers do. Ultimately it is going to be up to you and how happy you are with how fast and how well your dogs are progressing in a given time set by you.

[Coveyrise64]

Whenever you can make it out Coveyrise you are more than welcome to come out and run dogs with me. Maybe you can teach me some things to add to my training program that will supplement the wild bird training as well. I am open to new and innovative approaches and I don't want anyone to think my way is the only way or the best way it is just my way and always will be as long as I have access to wild birds but anything that I could do better or different along with what I am already doing would be greatly appreciated. Hope to see you soon. And how is the grandbaby coming doing?

There never has been or will be a substitute for wild bird. If you got use'm, when there comes a time for a more controlled situation then use the pigeons.

The grand daughter and mother went home today. The wife is over there too, took me 4 hrs to get her to Bentonville, AR yesterday. The roads were and still are a mess.

Coveyrise64

[Tall Boy]

It's important for a young dog to find birds where birds should be. It doesn't necesarilly need to be wild birds, although they are the best, I train on pre-season release birds. Once the dog learns how to pattern, use the wind, find and handle birds (starts holding point) then it is time to go to the johnny house and teach him manners. The controlled situation in the bird field is a much better learning environment than chasing him down on a horse and dragging him back to where he knocked. I think of the transition to hunting as an overlay of what he learned in the bird field. You have to turn him loose and let him make mistakes; "If you're not making corrections, then you're not training"- Mo lindley. The transition is easier if you continue to show him how he "should" do it with the bird field. You cannot accomplish a finished dog simply on pigeons and traps, but they do make the breaking process take much less pressure. With enough repetition you can make something second nature for a dog.

To me the puppy years are the most important for a dog, it's when he's able to learn the best. For a dog to develop "bird-sense" it has to find birds in natural situations at an impresionable age, and this cannot be accomplished on JH birds or pigeons alone. Even after becoming 100% off lead in a BF, mistakes will be made and corrections will be needed on wild birds to completley finish a dog. So yes you need wild birds, to make a top-notch dog.