Gun Dog Forum

I've found a ton of good info on training dogs for upland birds on both this forum and in books, videos, other sites, etc. Most of the training seems pretty universal across the board regarding the type of bird you are hunting but I was wondering of there are any major differences between training a dog for grouse vs pheasants? The books tend to focus more on pheasants.

I plan to hunt my springer on both of them (as well as woodcock and waterfowl) and obviously the terrain and cover is different and like I said before the basic concepts seem the same. My pup is a flushing dog but I would be interested in hearing info on pointers as well. I've hunted grouse extensively but the majority of the time I was dog-less and flushing them myself.

All the same brother, just different habitats except for waterfowl... that requires nonslip retriever work.

It's all about Control. Your dog (as a Flusher) needs to be near or within shotgun range when birdy.

Work on Obedience - Obedience - Obedience. You need to be able to recall your dog when it gets birdy
& starts punching out of range. Retrieving feathers / birds is a good thing to work on also.
Your dog also needs to be conditioned to gunfire.

with a flushing dog, training is identical.

They way you train them is the same.
The birds will continue to train the dogs out in the field, constantly showing them new tricks, moreso the pheasants than the grouse though.
Grouse are much more "flush happy" than a rooster.

I start with grouse cover with my dogs first over pheasant cover. The cover creates a low pressure development in control believe it or not. During introducing birds and the gun, I progressively phase the dog in thicker cover when I see consistencies within the newly introduced environment (the cover). I firmly believe that problems with a dog's bird manners exist in how thin the cover is. The dog has more room to run, primarily because they can see the bird fly away from them, and that is the foundation for problems. There will probably be people who disagree, but all of my dogs that I trained have not changed my mind with this.


Dogs learn equally the same with any bird they have to hunt, I do not believe any one species of bird is easier for a dog to understand. There is always something new to learn from birds. I noticed that you just got your pup. The dog as my avatar was born in March, and hunted grouse when she was six months.