Gun Dog Forum

I have a female 1.5 year old German Shorthaired Pointer. I trained her myself to quail hunt and so far she has been doing good for how young she is. I have taken her on 5 hunts this year and she has really impressed me, however, the last hunt I took her on she busted two coveys. I am hunting pen raised birds and I have been putting them out in brush piles that I have made. She understands "whoa" but gets really antsy if the birds start to walk around in front of her, and she will circle them and get a little closer, staying on point. This is causing her to bust some of the coveys before I can get up to them and before I can get everyone ready to shoot. Does anyone have any tips/pointers on how to discipline her when this happens and some things I can start doing with her training, so she will be more steady on point.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks!

Whoa barrel, the Buddy Stick.

reinforcing whoa may help but the problem you have is the bird's your using. Pen raised bird's generally give the dog to many liberty's. if you have help, you work the dog on a check cord and have a flusher get the bird up; don't let go of the check cord. Better yet if you have remote release trap's or a friend that does, lose the quail and go to pigeon's. Pigeon's won't land on thee ground close by encouraging your dog to get it, they land in a tree or roof top. The pigeon in the trap will not get up and walk around in front of your dog. I think one of the hardest thing's in the world is making a pen raised bird act like a wild bird. Easiest thing is to make a pigeon act like a real bird with a remote release trap.

The man says he is hunting pen birds.

And I have trained a couple hundred dogs to finished standards without pigeons or launchers.

Better flying birds and take the chase away. She must learn that her movements cause the birds to flush, and when that happens no bird will be shot... unless you have been doing that? Take your time getting to her on point , if she is going to circle and bust, let her. Don't shoot, keep her standing there for sometime then move on to your other birds in an opposite direction. When she remains steady, shoot it.

HuntGSP wrote: This is causing her to bust some of the coveys before I can get up to them and before I can get everyone ready to shoot. Does anyone have any tips/pointers on how to discipline her when this happens and some things I can start doing with her training, so she will be more steady on point.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks!

Take her hunting alone just you and her, you do not need a posse to do the shooting especially when they have nothing invested in your dog. By doing this you are reducing the energy in the hunt area which should lend it self to helping her rather than confusing her.
Personally I am not a fan of pen raised quail. but that is not your problem that is mine.

I have never worked on quail so I don't know much about them or their behaviour. Is the bitch getting so close to the quail that she is pointing them by sight rather than by scent ? I know quail are very small birds but a dog should still be able to wind scent them from quite a distance away. I think your dog is approaching them far too closely ?

The advice to take the bitch hunting with no other people present is a good one. It decreases any pressure felt by you and by your dog. It gives you a chance to train rather than think about shooting.

Bill T.

The dog is circling because she wants to push the birds out. She figures if she circles, stops, circles, stops, she won't get in trouble when they fly because after all, she *did* stop, didn't she?

You can try pushing her into the birds and mildly correcting her when they go. For my circling fool, correction meant we're done for the day. No more birds. You'll have to figure out what works for yourself. You can try using a jump box and popping the bird the i stant she moves after scenting it. I would use purchased quail rather than pigeons for the jump box, since she knows what to do but refuses to do it on the game birds. Don't punish her - that could lead to blinking, and that's a whole other bucket of worms.

IME dogs that circle don't have a ton of point. But they like to see 'em fly. The trick is to get the dog to understand that they fly just as well after establishing point the first time, as they do after circles.

Good luck with your dog. Stay with it and don't let her get away with circling; it's a motherbear of a problem once it gets ingrained.

shags wrote:The dog is circling because she wants to push the birds out. She figures if she circles, stops, circles, stops, she won't get in trouble when they fly because after all, she *did* stop, didn't she?

You can try pushing her into the birds and mildly correcting her when they go. For my circling fool, correction meant we're done for the day. No more birds. You'll have to figure out what works for yourself. You can try using a jump box and popping the bird the i stant she moves after scenting it. I would use purchased quail rather than pigeons for the jump box, since she knows what to do but refuses to do it on the game birds. Don't punish her - that could lead to blinking, and that's a whole other bucket of worms.

IME dogs that circle don't have a ton of point. But they like to see 'em fly. The trick is to get the dog to understand that they fly just as well after establishing point the first time, as they do after circles.

Good luck with your dog. Stay with it and don't let her get away with circling; it's a motherbear of a problem once it gets ingrained.

Highlighted in bold..not necessarily true..at ALL!!

..but I like your take on this

..in another thread related to this same scenario somebody told me, "pick your poison"..that was good advice.

I know a lot of good dog people that consider the circling thing blinking, avoiding the bird.

Rather good or bad, the OP needs to curb it for now.

she understands whoa without birds? she needs to before you reinforce whoa on birds, is she collar condition ,is she steady to wing and shot? she thinks she can catch the birds that why she is moving in on the bird shes trying to trap them. has she trap any yet? she sound a lot like my dog at that age just trying to help

Coming across coveys of quail could be a bad thing when hunting with young inexperienced dogs, it's great with a seasoned pointer though, but I found in my experience that the young or rookie dogs tend to get over exited and start to bump and chase when there's plenty of birds around,they tend to loose the plot all the trainings gets thrown out the window

Neil wrote:The man says he is hunting pen birds.

And I have trained a couple hundred dogs to finished standards without pigeons or launchers.

Pigeons and launchers are great but are by no means a necessity. Plenty of great dogs have been trained with neither.

Charlie

birddogger wrote:

Neil wrote:The man says he is hunting pen birds.

And I have trained a couple hundred dogs to finished standards without pigeons or launchers.

Pigeons and launchers are great but are by no means a necessity. Plenty of great dogs have been trained with neither.

Charlie

+1