Wild Bird Training

[randomnut]

I've been using pigeons quite a bit in training. It's a lot of trouble for me finding birds (mine will not home yet), loading launchers, switching dogs, etc.

I noticed on my older dog, hunting wild birds just woke him up. We'd hunted several times, and he'd found and pointed birds, but one day it just seemed to click for him.

He started pointing, holding his points (not steady to flush), and just plain figured out hunting. He turned into a different dog that day.

All that said, I'm thinking of spending the next couple weekends driving 5 hours one way to get my dogs on wild birds. I'm hoping the dogs will learn more in a couple weekends on wild birds than 6 months of pigeons.

What do you think?

[JJT]

For sure no substitute for wild birds!