Gun Dog Forum

My dog covers ground really well off-road, but if we are walking a road for grouse he tends to just run down the road, not covering much, if any, of the edges. So I started working on our quartering again. "This way" means to turn and I would run zig-zags with the checkcord saying this way at each turn. He now does this great but the problem is if I walk straight he won't do it, he just thinks this way means to follow me. I thought about putting the cc through a ring in a post so I could pull him in a direction away from me or just having an extra person direct him with the CC while I give the commands. What would you suggest?

Walk in the thick stuff with him until he figues it out that is where the birds hang out. I think once he realizes there are birds to be found along those edges, there will be no need for any training.

Plant birds for him to find in the areas you want him to find birds if there is a reward for quartering the dog will see it as beneficial

isonychia wrote:My dog covers ground really well off-road, but if we are walking a road for grouse he tends to just run down the road, not covering much, if any, of the edges. So I started working on our quartering again. "This way" means to turn and I would run zig-zags with the checkcord saying this way at each turn. He now does this great but the problem is if I walk straight he won't do it, he just thinks this way means to follow me. I thought about putting the cc through a ring in a post so I could pull him in a direction away from me or just having an extra person direct him with the CC while I give the commands. What would you suggest?

Dogs have noses and they really don't need to be in the cover if they run the downwind side. With experience they will learn how to hunt and it isn't always like we think they should. But planting birds in the upwind side of the cover may help teach it to check carefully but doesn't always produce a dog that gets in the cover the way you think they should.

Ezzy

Just hunting him is gonna teach him more than you or anyone else ever could "create" for him.

ezzy333 wrote:

isonychia wrote:My dog covers ground really well off-road, but if we are walking a road for grouse he tends to just run down the road, not covering much, if any, of the edges. So I started working on our quartering again. "This way" means to turn and I would run zig-zags with the checkcord saying this way at each turn. He now does this great but the problem is if I walk straight he won't do it, he just thinks this way means to follow me. I thought about putting the cc through a ring in a post so I could pull him in a direction away from me or just having an extra person direct him with the CC while I give the commands. What would you suggest?

Dogs have noses and they really don't need to be in the cover if they run the downwind side. With experience they will learn how to hunt and it isn't always like we think they should. But planting birds in the upwind side of the cover may help teach it to check carefully but doesn't always produce a dog that gets in the cover the way you think they should.

Ezzy

Exactly . Mine would take the one edge and possibly come back on the other edge ( not good for a trial). A dog with experience knows what he is doing . Today we were in a huge plowed farmland. There was one bush . Guess where the dog headed before he did the edges?

Thanks, good advice all! I won't have any birds to train with until the spring, and hopefully I can afford to lease some land to work birds on then!

I dont really like a pointing dog to quarter, but when I hunt old oil roads and farm lanes I do like my dogs to get off of the road. If i have a dog that wont get off the road I will take short casts myself off of the road with the dog to the front and give a quick "over here" which is what i use to bring my dogs around. when they are in the cover i will get back on the road and walk. if they come back to the road I will use the same thing but will go off the opposite side of the road.

It doesn't take long for a dog to figure out there are birds off of the edges once you start to get into some.

Jim

isonychia wrote:Thanks, good advice all! I won't have any birds to train with until the spring, and hopefully I can afford to lease some land to work birds on then!

Don't plant them too close to you,or you'll make a dog that shortens its range to hang around you.

cmc274 wrote:Walk in the thick stuff with him until he figues it out that is where the birds hang out. I think once he realizes there are birds to be found along those edges, there will be no need for any training.

+1. To me, a grouse dog HAS to quarter. Most of the birds are, one side or the other, within 50 yards more or less of the edge of a road. I want a dog that works BOTH sides, not just runs back and forth on the road until he smells something.

Not sure how you have your dog trained, but if I am walking down a road and I have the dog at heal, he is by my side, when I tell him to hunt em up he'll go to quartering. just wondering if you had your dog in that scenario, and he was just being a good dog...

Thanks,
ZMan079

I think he just doesn't know where the birds are yet. Going to train this spring/summer on pigeons, looks like my land lord is going to let me have a pigeon house and the blm will let me train there