training with scented decoy in between bird training?

[Derrick]

We finally moved into our new house and my 5 month old GSP loves all the extra room and land. We have two large fields across the road from us I can use to walk him around and do some training. My pigeon coop is out at my parents farm because they have alot more land than we do like I talked about in another post. I've done live bird training out there by planting pigeons in the field for him and he's starting to realize that chasing them does nothing.

I don't have any live birds at my house at the moment and I have a canvas bumper with grouse wings tied to it and a little grouse scent on it. I've dragged it through the field a couple times and hid it in "birdy" places. He loves going outside to go look for them. He's knows what we are going to do as soon as I grab his check cord. He finds the winged bumper every time. But my concern is obvious. If he gets to close the bumper obviously doesn't fly away like a real bird would to tell him he's too close. What can I do to teach him to keep his distance without the bird flying away? Or should I quit using that and just use only live birds even though I cant do that nearly as much with my schedule? He still sees live birds at least once a week. I just do this in between sometimes.

[Deuce]

I'm not an expert, but I'll say two things... The dog knows the difference between birds and the bumper, with what you're doing is more of a track/retrieve training. Once a week on live birds is just fine. I wish I could put my dog on live, well flying birds once a week.

[DonF]

I'd get rid of the bumper and build a loft at home. Doesn't take up much space and the birds are right there. Of course if the farm is close, it wouldn't make any difference. You want something for the dog to retrieve, put a couple dead birds in the freezer. Take them out about 1/2 hr before you use them.

[Chukar12]

There are a lot more training things you can be doing at this stage. Depending on your methodology, coming to you, going with you, standing still, kenneling commands, etc... The bumper has little value as described and could create some bad habits with scenting. If you are getting the pup into birds once a week right now you are doing ok, twice is good, and three times is probably as many as would be beneficial. When you go to break the pup you may be more frequent and perhaps by then you could first house a few pigeons and then graduate to game birds.

Joe

[Derrick]

The farm is pretty close so I'm just going to leave them there. I'm going to start keeping a couple in a box though at my house I got built for them. I need to get a couple dead ones. But I'm down to four birds and two are breeders so I can't kill any off. Thankfully its warming up here in the north so the feral pigeons are finally coming out again so I can go net some and kill a couple of them for him. I'll just continue to work more on come and staying still in between birds . He's real good with come already but its good to continue working on it.

[4dabirds]

Specificity . You need to train specific behaviors into your dog. The dog is not going to hunt bumpers. When it is time to let dog hunt you have trained it to find and retrieve . Get yourself on a specific program. Try hickox it will be a good start.

[DonF]

I knew two guy's in Montana with the same idea. One used scent and put it on his decoys and taught the dog to retrieve the decoy's. You can guess what happened on the first duck he shot. Guy sent him out again and again. Dog brought in every decoy and he never got the duck. The other guy, a friend of mine used bumper's with scent on them. We were down on the Swan River on the north side of Flathead lake hunting duck's. left my Joe at home and just brought his dog, it had never retrieved a duck and needed the experience. Well he shot one that landed on a small island maybe 30 yds out on the river. He sent his dog and the dog looked at him like he was nut's. He had always thrown something for the dog first before. So Sid picked up a rock and threw it out there. Dog went right to the island, right on past the duck and got the rock. He got the dog out there a couple more time's and one time the dog actually stopped and sniffed the duck. Didn't pick it up though. We were about ten miles from my house so we went back and got Joe. At fetching ducks, he was a machine. That dog wouldn't even hunt anything else. Shot a pheasant for him once near a slew. The bird dropped and Joe went the other way. I guess he figured there was nothing that far from water worth putting in his mouth! Back down at the river, I sent Joe to the island and he had the duck right now. Sid was a nice guy and absolutely loved that POS lab of his! That did my heart good! BTW, Joe was also a lab.

[DoubleBarrel GunDogs]

I'm not an expert, but I'll say two things... The dog knows the difference between birds and the bumper, with what you're doing is more of a track/retrieve training. Once a week on live birds is just fine. I wish I could put my dog on live, well flying birds once a week.

I agree, this is a tracking drill, and is likely not doing you any good at this point. It may in fact develop some bad habits like creeping and hunting with his head to the ground, instead of up where it belongs.

I suggest that you build up the pigeon supply where you currently keep the birds, and train them to home from your new training grounds. This will soon work to your advantage, and help you generalize pup in more training areas. I'm not sure what your refering to when you said that you needed dead birds. I normally lock the wings on a pigeon when I want a pick up bird or use a clip wing in launchers for "shot birds". I havn't killed a pigeon in quite a while now. I usually only kill one or two birds for a pup when finishing intro to the gun.

Nate