Deer.......ugh

jimbo&rooster · Post by **jimbo&rooster** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:33 am

my 17mo GSP is coming along pretty well on his bird work, but other than wearing an ecollar with his beeper, I have not even begun to CC him. and have not been turning the E Collar on. He has taken a liking to bumping and running deer. when he is after ol bambi is the only time that I can not recall him. Not being CCd to anything else would it be acceptable to burn his "bleep" when he is running deer? I would only do it when I can visibly confirm a deer chase. This is how we did it with our hounds when I was a kid..... but we did alot of things back then I would not do today....

Any suggestions? Avoiding Deer is not an option.

Jim

nikegundog · Post by **nikegundog** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:44 am

Use the E collar, thats what its there for.

birddogger · Post by **birddogger** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:48 am

nikegundog wrote:Use the E collar, thats what its there for.

+1. Make a believer out of him!!

Charlie

Chukar12 · Post by **Chukar12** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:56 am

When you do it don't say a word, just stimulate him until he is off and go on about your business....Let the deer be the bad guy

shags · Post by **shags** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:58 am

Turn it up and give him a harsh dose - and keep your mouth shut. You want him to feel the Wrath of God and it has nothing to do with you

When he returns to you just go on like you're clueless as to what just happened.

birddogger · Post by **birddogger** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 10:09 am

Chukar12 wrote:When you do it don't say a word, just stimulate him until he is off and go on about your business....Let the deer be the bad guy

Yep.

Charlie

jimbo&rooster · Post by **jimbo&rooster** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 11:08 am

thanks guys, my gut instinct was to turn it up and let it eat, i just wanted to hear what you guys had to say.

Jim

gittrdonebritts · Post by **gittrdonebritts** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 11:25 am

+1 to everyones advice Light him up as soon as you can confirm its a deer chase.

2browndogs · Post by **2browndogs** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 4:29 pm

I'm a novice at this stuff, having only trained (I should saying still training) one dog, but I think you have to break him from "scent chasing" and break him from "sight chasing".....we would let our dog get on a deer scent (one we saw cross the road ahead of us) and let him go after it for a ways, then correct him, it only took a few times before he would not even follow a deer scent. This has worked and kept our dog off deer for the last two years.

But this past summer our dog bumped right into a deer, I mean it practically ran into it and the dog went after it. I did a bit of online searching and some folks said you had to break them of sight chasing too. The sight chase seems to be a bit harder since you have to get him close to a deer and let him go, then correct. this one I'm not sure we've completely corrected.

Has anyone else used these techniques in a similar fashion.

Shawn

4dabirds · Post by **4dabirds** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 8:26 pm

Bring him to a field where he can see deer let him out let him chase then correct him. If you correct on sight and the dog knows deer equal correction why would the dog scent trail a deer? How do you know for sure the dog is trailing a deer? Lets say you see the deer the dog starts trailing but he also has a nose full of bird scent , do you think the dog will understand which one you corrected for.

birddogger · Post by **birddogger** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:15 pm

4dabirds wrote:Bring him to a field where he can see deer let him out let him chase then correct him. If you correct on sight and the dog knows deer equal correction why would the dog scent trail a deer? How do you know for sure the dog is trailing a deer? Lets say you see the deer the dog starts trailing but he also has a nose full of bird scent , do you think the dog will understand which one you corrected for.

+1. The correction should come only when you see him chasing the deer.

Charlie

PrairieGoat · Post by **PrairieGoat** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 10:48 pm

+1 on welding their rears to the ground! Not so sure about the "not saying anything" though......I generally want mine to know that it is my desire that we play by my rules. Helps them sort out the alpha dogs from the ALPHA DOG!!! My dogs are spoiled beyond belief (one is asleep on my couch right now and the other is asleep in the middle of my kingsize bed) and they don't have too many rules.....but one of them is staying out of the road (no fences). It is something that I will absolutely not tolerate (for their own safety) and whether or not they have their e-collars on or not, they know (after a couple of incidents) that they will feel the wrath of the ALPHA DOG if they get in the road. I now feel comfortable with them having the run of the place while I am down in the south 40 without having to watch them every minute because they know they are not supposed to be in the road, and I believe that they know why!

Post by **ezzy333** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 11:02 pm

PrairieGoat wrote:+1 on welding their rears to the ground! Not so sure about the "not saying anything" though......I generally want mine to know that it is my desire that we play by my rules. Helps them sort out the alpha dogs from the ALPHA DOG!!! My dogs are spoiled beyond belief (one is asleep on my couch right now and the other is asleep in the middle of my kingsize bed) and they don't have too many rules.....but one of them is staying out of the road (no fences). It is something that I will absolutely not tolerate (for their own safety) and whether or not they have their e-collars on or not, they know (after a couple of incidents) that they will feel the wrath of the ALPHA DOG if they get in the road. I now feel comfortable with them having the run of the place while I am down in the south 40 without having to watch them every minute because they know they are not supposed to be in the road, and I believe that they know why!

You can prove you are the alpha dog later but what you want now is "the dog not wanting to chase a deer" and not "wanting to but I better not when someone is looking but I;ll get my chance later".

Ezzzy

gittrdonebritts · Post by **gittrdonebritts** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 11:04 pm

It will only work using the e-collar to corect him from chasing deer if you see him/ or know that he is activly chasing deer, I have a dog (my Jill) that i was sure was hunting mice but I could never prove it for sure, then one day while hunting she had her nose to the ground and was running and wagging her tail as if she was getting birdy just like she has done in training with pigeons/quail/chuckar, had the tramsmiter on high and then it happened a mouse jumped out of the snow and as she went to grab it I light her up, and lets just say she has never "hunted" mice again ! I would suggest trying to take the dog to an area were there are lots of deer and few if any deer and setting the dog up to hunt deer and correct the dog for chasing deer but i would also have some planted birds to reinforece the dog hunting and finding birds and praise the holly crap out of them for finding the bird and pointing it ! there is also scent breaking, were you put a scent collar on the dog cover it daily with deer scent until the dog hates the smell and avoides its any chance he gets, I've seen it work, my grandpa had a border Collie, that loved to kill chickens when no one was home, and he thought the dog was the one killing the chickens but had no proof so he and grandma left in the family car and jumped out of the car a mile or so down the road and walked back just in time to find the dog killing chickens, and since he was such a good stock dog and didn't want to shoot him he tied a dead chicken around his neck for a month and kept him chained up and after the month of having a rotting chicken around his neck he quit killing chickens.

Ken W · Post by **Ken W** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 9:51 am

I have broke tons of coonhounds and beagles from running deer, seems like thats all they want to do sometimes. I have had the most success by finding a bunch of deer in a field that you can drive up on while it's still light out. I keep the dog on my lap and let him really get a good look at them and then let him out. I let him build up a good head of steam and get up to where they were standing and then lay him out. I then take the dog and get him on what he is supposed to be hunting. The next time out, I find the same setup and wait until the deer leave without dog seeing them, then I walk the dog across the field as if we were hunting and look at his body language when he hits the scent. I will usually give a slight nick and just keep going. Two things, I never say a word to the dog and I make dam sure the collar is fully charged and working.

jimbo&rooster · Post by **jimbo&rooster** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 1:36 pm

what most of you are describing is basically what we used to do with coyote hounds and coon hounds, and is more or less what I had planned on doing, fortunately finding deer around here is like finding cattle on a dairy farm so it shouldnt be too big of a deal to get him on a few chases.

thanks for the advice
Jim

birddogger · Post by **birddogger** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 1:45 pm

It will more than likely only take one chase!

Good luck,
Charlie

gonehuntin' · Post by **gonehuntin'** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 5:36 pm

I would pretty much agree with everyone here, BUT, I would NEVER make a dog's first experience with the ecollar an unpleasant one. Me, I'm going to break that dog out fully on the collar, meaning whoa, obedience and ff. Only then, am I going to correct him from chasing that deer. Then I'm going to do it like everyone else does.

4dabirds · Post by **4dabirds** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 5:50 pm

PrairieGoat wrote:+1 on welding their rears to the ground! Not so sure about the "not saying anything" though......I generally want mine to know that it is my desire that we play by my rules. Helps them sort out the alpha dogs from the ALPHA DOG!!! My dogs are spoiled beyond belief (one is asleep on my couch right now and the other is asleep in the middle of my kingsize bed) and they don't have too many rules.....but one of them is staying out of the road (no fences). It is something that I will absolutely not tolerate (for their own safety) and whether or not they have their e-collars on or not, they know (after a couple of incidents) that they will feel the wrath of the ALPHA DOG if they get in the road. I now feel comfortable with them having the run of the place while I am down in the south 40 without having to watch them every minute because they know they are not supposed to be in the road, and I believe that they know why!

Wait let me get this straight one is on the couch and the other is on the bed,its your responsibility to feed them, house them play with them,clean up after them . Who is training whom here? Sounds to me like the big dogs in that house are asleep right now so don't wake them for the answer. P.S. can I come live there too. LOL

PrairieGoat · Post by **PrairieGoat** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 7:05 pm

ezzy333 wrote: You can prove you are the alpha dog later but what you want now is "the dog not wanting to chase a deer" and not "wanting to but I better not when someone is looking but I;ll get my chance later".

Ezzzy

No, what I want is for the dog to know exactly what the problem is and who is demanding that it be done MY way. I'm not looking to break the dogs desire (I suspect that this is the "real" difference in our philosophy) to chase, just that chasing deer, jackrabbits, or whatever is not allowed (no matter how much they want it). I believe that zapping a dog without the verbal cues has the potential for leading to unintended locational/situational issues (much like a dog that won't go into a snow goose spread because it looks too much like the white flags on the underground fence). You never know what the dog is going to associate the zap with.....after several occurrences he will hopefully associate it with the deer, not the clearing in the woods or what-have-you. My experience has been that the ecollar mixed with verbal cues is a much more effective training tool and they are much quicker to associate the meaning. I only depend on ecollar alone in 3 situations (that I can think of at the moment)......when the dog is completely out of earshot (due to distance or wind), when I'm trying to be silent (although most of the time I will still whisper), or when I am in the house and they are out on the property and need correction (but even then I generally come out of the house chewing their behinds...over time this situation has dimished to almost non-existent as they have learned that whether or not I appear to be watching you stay out of the road, don't chase rabbits across property lines, don't dig up ground squirrels or gophers, etc.).

PrairieGoat · Post by **PrairieGoat** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 7:10 pm

4dabirds wrote:
PrairieGoat wrote:+1 on welding their rears to the ground! Not so sure about the "not saying anything" though......I generally want mine to know that it is my desire that we play by my rules. Helps them sort out the alpha dogs from the ALPHA DOG!!! My dogs are spoiled beyond belief (one is asleep on my couch right now and the other is asleep in the middle of my kingsize bed) and they don't have too many rules.....but one of them is staying out of the road (no fences). It is something that I will absolutely not tolerate (for their own safety) and whether or not they have their e-collars on or not, they know (after a couple of incidents) that they will feel the wrath of the ALPHA DOG if they get in the road. I now feel comfortable with them having the run of the place while I am down in the south 40 without having to watch them every minute because they know they are not supposed to be in the road, and I believe that they know why!
Wait let me get this straight one is on the couch and the other is on the bed,its your responsibility to feed them, house them play with them,clean up after them . Who is training whom here? Sounds to me like the big dogs in that house are asleep right now so don't wake them for the answer. P.S. can I come live there too. LOL

No kidding....if I come back in another life I want to come back as one of my birddogs!!!

Actually I learned a long time ago that I was just put on this planet to carry my wallet.....it's the only reason I get invited to go shopping/hunting/fishing/vacation/etc by wife, dogs, kids, grandkids, friends, strangers.....the sooner you come to that realization the happier you'll be!!!

north country guy · Post by **north country guy** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 7:33 pm

Before The E-Collar, We Used To Take The Bull Headed Dogs That Would Not Leave The Deer Alone. And Put Them In A 55 Gallon Barrell With A Deer Hide In It Put The Lid On And Roll Them Down A Hill . It Was A Done Deal No More Deer Problems After That Little Ride !!!

brad27 · Post by **brad27** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 9:47 pm

Re: Deer.......ugh
by north country guy » Thu Mar 10, 2011 5:33 pm
Before The E-Collar, We Used To Take The Bull Headed Dogs That Would Not Leave The Deer Alone. And Put Them In A 55 Gallon Barrell With A Deer Hide In It Put The Lid On And Roll Them Down A Hill . It Was A Done Deal No More Deer Problems After That Little Ride !!!

Hey Ruth, remember the thread where you were asking about NOT using the e collar?

jimbo&rooster · Post by **jimbo&rooster** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 11:01 am

Well Ive been running my boy the last few days to get ready for an upcoming HT and yesterday he hit a group of deer. At about 200yds with three deer about 30yds in front of him I lit him up and he stopped for a second the went right back after them. the second shot got his attention and he looked like a liver and white lightning bolt coming back across the field. after about 2 min of hunting real cloose to me he went back out and started hunting. We will see what happens next time he gets into a herd.

thanks for the replies fellas.

Jim

Buckeye_V · Post by **Buckeye_V** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 11:15 am

I have deer in my yard every night and on every run my dogs smell deer and have the opportunity to run them. They don't. It only took once for each dog.

Now I have one who points them or stops to flush on them - like a million bucks.

For those who yell at their dogs when they get into deer, what are you going to do when they are out of sight/hearing range or you are not running them? Just curious..... My wife runs my dogs just as much as I do and they need to know that the DEER BITE