Tips for a new GSP owner/trainer

[GHuff20ga]

Hi all. I’m new to the forum and even though I’ve hunted upland game birds for a few years, I just got my first honest hunting dog this summer. I’ve had labs for a lot of my life that have been wonderful pets but I decided to go with a German Shorthaired Pointer this time. I’ve trained my labs to a decent level of obedience, but training a pointer for bird work is still pretty new to me and I’d be glad for any help you all could throw my way! My pup is almost 5 months old now and I feel like she is doing pretty well with the stuff that we’ve done so far, but once again, I really don’t have anything to judge her against. Here are a few things that I’d be glad for your opinions on..

1) We rent out in the country with no fence around our place so when we moved in I put in a buried wire fence around the perimeter of our house and yard and trained my lab that way with the shock collar and white flags. My question is this: If I train my 5 mo puppy with this same underground fence/shock collar, is that going to be detrimental at all to any future training we will be doing with the e-collar? (I bought a DT 1450 upland a few weeks back but haven’t done any conditioning with her yet because her neck is a bit too small for the collar.) Up to this point if I’m not going to be outside to watch her for a while I just put her away in her kennel or tie her up for a few minutes. I’d like to use the buried wire and shock collar at some point for containment, but I don’t want to create any problems with e-collar training down the road.

2) Any tips on how to help develop a natural retrieve in my pup? Up to now we haven’t really done much retrieving, mostly because she doesn’t really retrieve to hand and I don’t want to chase her. (Once again, I’m used to my labs that would rather die than stop chasing a tennis ball, so I really don’t have a good reference for how a GSPs retrieving instinct develops.) Whenever I throw a bumper or tennis ball out, she charges out there and picks it up and runs around tail wagging like it’s the best thing ever, but she almost never gets within my reach. I feel like with the desire she has to run out and pick it up, her retrieve will probably develop over time but I don’t really have anything to back that hunch up with. The few times that she has brought the bumper back to hand, she doesn’t really seem to have a problem giving it up to me. Also, if she never does develop a retrieve naturally, at what age should I start a force fetch program? (from some of the reading I’ve done I know at this point she’s too young to take the pressure)

3) Lastly, birds! Here in California the wild birds that I’ll be hunting with her will mostly be valley and mountain quail with of course the trips to the preserves for a few pen raised pheasants and chukar, and maybe a few grouse. A few minutes from my house there is a wildlife refuge with trails through it that hold absurd amounts of valley quail. I try to get her out there every weekend to get her nose on the quail and get used to the brush and habitat. For the most part when we go out there I have her on a 25’ check cord, but if we’re the only ones out there I’ll let her of leash every now and then and let her run around and chase birds. The other day my neighbor and I planted 10 pigeons in bird launchers out in his horse pasture and worked her on a long check cord into the wind. She pointed all 10 birds, one at 20’ away and I had to move her up. For the most part she pointed them all between 4-8’ away and I would hold her steady with the check cord while my buddy would then walk in and spring the launcher. My question is, is she mixed signals if on the one hand I let her chase quail that I know she doesn’t have a prayer of catching, and on the other hand when we train on pigeons I hold her steady with the check cord?

A few other things as an FYI.. For her obedience training, her heeling is fair depending on the day (there has been a few days that she heeled really well off leash for a few minutes), her recall is not as good as I would like it to be but it continues to slowly improve. A few weeks ago we started working on “woah” and she does pretty good as long as she is on a place board. All of the obedience work is done in 10-15 min episodes and no more than 2 times a day (sometimes I get busy and we skip a day).
Feel free to comment on any or all of the points I have here and let me know if I should be doing something different or if there is something that I should be doing that I’m not! Thanks for help.

[Sharon]

1/ I see no problem in the future. As long as the e collar isn't used around birds , there should be no problem.

WElcome to the forum. (Sorry I'm a person of few words.)

[mnaj_springer]

Can I ask why you wanted your pup to move up from 20' feet? That's really not that far off.

[ezzy333]

She should point from 20 ft. or even more if she smells the birds. Any closer and many native birds may flush.

[GHuff20ga]

Moving her up was mostly my mistake. I wasn't entirely sure of where the bird was planted and didn't believe her. I'll trust her from now on!

[Trekmoor]

I cannot comment on (1) as I have no experience of buried e-fences and very little experience of e-collars......I've got one but I never use it.

I can comment on (2) ...your pup does not have a retrieve problem, she is already a good , "natural retriever"....... she is just not a natural deliverer of dummies ! Few pups deliver "naturally" ......that is the part of a retrieve that needs to be taught.
Many pups have various faults when it comes to delivering retrieves .....some pups drop them, some pups do "run-pasts" with them , some pups run all over the place with them and some pups take them away to bury them ! Some pups even do a mixture of all of those things !

A retrieve is a recall with the dog holding something in it's mouth. ----- In other words , if you do not have a good recall then you will be unlikely to have a good retrieve.
Work on the recall with lots of praise both vocal and physical as the pup recalls.

I never F.F. pups/dogs so I cannot comment on when or how to do that either but if a pup has shown me it enjoys retrieve lessons as your pup is showing you then F.F. is unnecessary anyway , unless maybe you want to run your GSP in Labrador retriever type competitions. A dog trained without the use of F.F. is more than adequate for normal shooting companion use or even for field trials provided the trials aren't the type held in the U.S. for Labradors.
F.F. train your pup if you want to but I know it will not really be necessary.

To keep a pups interest levels high during retrieves do not do many of them to begin with .......2 to 6 is more than enough at any one time. How many depends on the pup and the number the pup is very willing to do will almost certainly vary from day to day...........you have to assess the pup and then decide whether to stop at 2 or at 22 retrieves !

Vary the types of dummies used. Sometimes canvas, sometimes plastic and sometimes home-made. That makes the pup keep an open mind about what size, colour, weight and texture it will retrieve. That, in turn, can be a help later on when a pup/dog is confronted by a duck to retrieve instead of a quail or a pheasant.

You mention your pup seldom comes within arms reach while holding a dummy ? If this means you try to grab the dummy as the pup whizzes past you, cease to do that. Never make a snatch at a dummy, if your snatch is successful it will have taught the pup to keep further away from you in the future in order to keep the dummy ! Sit down on a seat of some kind , open your legs into a wide open V, recall the pup with no dummy in it's mouth several times and praise profusely as the pups front paws marmalize your family jewels ! Then try doing the same thing but with a dummy in the dogs mouth.

Your open legs and your sitting position "invite" the pup right into you and this has worked for me with cocker spaniels, springer spaniels, Brittanies, G.S.P.'s, Vizslas and Labs........it does work but do not expect an instant cure . Do not be in a hurry to take the dummy from the pup !

My only comments about (3) are that I only train pups using wild birds even though I have access to pigeons and have two remote launchers. Wild birds are far better trainers than I am and although I never even use a check cord my brits and GSP's have still won trials.
Part of the joy of training working gundogs for me is to make almost moment to moment assessments and re-assessments of a pup as it hunts or retrieves and then to adjust my training accordingly. It does not work for everyone but it may work for you.

Bill T.