Gun Dog Forum

Its my first time taking my dog out. Were going to a phesant ranch for work stuff and I want to make sure that he has the most sucsessfull day I can give him. I dont think he will be hunting just retriving but im not sure. Im a little over nervous and I want it to be good. So any helpful advice would be great. Thanks alot.

What has your dog been trained to know? If he is not steady to wing and shot, keep pup on the check cord.

If you have not conditioned pup to the gun yet , he should not be going to the Game farm yet.

If you have all your ducks lined up, you should have a great day. ( Does Utah get snow?")

Black lab. Right now he is a little way past force fetch (RIght past a year). He likes guns he not shy of them at all. Yes we get some snow.

I suspect from what you've said you may be heading for a problem. If he is not steady on pointing and the birds are not well flight conditioned he could scoup a bunch of birds. It'll get his prey drive in gear, how you gonna get it back out? But if they are really good birds, relax aqnd let it happen. He'll learn a lot. Kind of a double edged sword!

I just noticed, your in Utah. There's a guy on PDJ that does some guiding there somewhere. K9 help me out, whats his name. If you get near him listen to what he tells you.

ok thank you

I am pretty sure the dog is a lab?

which preserve are you going to? The only place I would recommend for a pup is hicken's (pleasant valley). it is out in uintah basin, great cover and more importantly I have never had a dog catch a bird there. There are a lot of preserves in Utah that have really horrible birds...so bad that I wont even take my broke dogs.

Good luck.

troutbum13 wrote:which preserve are you going to? The only place I would recommend for a pup is hicken's (pleasant valley). it is out in uintah basin, great cover and more importantly I have never had a dog catch a bird there. There are a lot of preserves in Utah that have really horrible birds...so bad that I wont even take my broke dogs.

Good luck.

Good advice here.

I've been there before and most of the birds are good but some of them have a little trouble getting in the air. If he does try to catch a bird what would i do and how do i stop him.

If there is any doubt in your mind that he may catch a bird, I would not take him. Trust me, I just had this experience. I took my dog to a preserve this summer for a training session, kept him on the CC, but he did still manage to catch one of five birds (4 of 5 were crappy fliers). OK. Then after some pigeon work, I ran him in the NA test. He did great in the test, but the birds were crappy fliers, and he caught two AFTER he pointed them and they flushed and flew a short distance away. OK. More pigeons, then I thought I was really smart and would take him to a preserve again, just before hunting season to get him used to good flying birds... WRONG... the birds didn't fly any better than 2 months prior and even though the dog was dragging the CC, I couldnt get to him before he caught some more birds.... that was an expensive lesson (for me). Now it is one week before bird season opens and my dog knows without a doubt that he can catch any bird he runs across... except the first time he meets a REAL wild bird, he won't. Nor the second time, nor the third, etc, etc, etc. I've got a few more sessions with pigeons to show him what is expected of him, but I think it will just take a season of getting his butt kicked by wild birds to find out what its all about. Don't do what I did, trust me. Doing NO training would have been better than what I tried to do....

If you still really want to take him, leave your gun at home and keep BOTH hands on his check cord. DON'T let him catch a bird.

Ok thanks for the advice mabye its not a good idea to take him.