First intro to live birds, 2yo GSP

Post Reply
Feathers'n'Furr
Rank: Just A Pup
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Jul 08, 2017 5:15 pm

First intro to live birds, 2yo GSP

Post by Feathers'n'Furr » Wed Jul 19, 2017 4:44 pm

So I've gotten a hold of some feral pigeons from a local wildlife removal company recently. I'm looking to use them with my 2 year old GSP. Here's the issue, she has never worked with live birds before. She's essentially been a duck/dove retriever the last two years. She's extremely obedient (all though lacking whoa), has a high prey drive, and spends a lot of time in the field with me I just don't live in an area with wild birds. I've seen her point plenty of trash when the opportunity arises so I know she points. What I'm getting at is I'm wanting to start working her for upland and I'm not really sure how to introduce her to live birds. Ideally I would think my best bet would be to plant them, let her learn that if she flushes/bumps them that she doesn't get them as the fly off and that would be a great intro to steadiness. My problem is the gentleman I got the pigeons from asked me not to release them and seeing as I want to continue to get pigeons from him I don't want them showing back up after he removed them. I know I can pull flight feathers but in my head that ends with her eventually catching the birds so any suggestions? Also I have some more info about my dogs in my introduction post over in the introduction section of the forum.

User avatar
tekoa
Rank: Junior Hunter
Posts: 97
Joined: Mon Oct 24, 2016 11:58 am
Location: George, WA

Re: First intro to live birds, 2yo GSP

Post by tekoa » Wed Jul 19, 2017 9:32 pm

She should be fearlessly and aggressively chasing clip wing birds( she may even kill a couple) before you let her chase flyers. It probably won't take more than a few Pigeons to introduce her to 'Upland' birds. Given that she's been retrieving she'll probably chase clip wing like she's on fire. I assume you've already introduced her to the gun. But if not then now is the time to do so using clip wings to occupy her attention while shooting.

All of this will only need a dozen Pigeons at the most to accomplish. After that the only birds she should see are hard flyers and birds you've shot. So Pigeons that you can't let fly are of no use to you except as pets. After my dogs figure out that they can't catch flying pigeons and the begin to point I switch to Chukar, which while expensive, seem to make the dog's point more intense with less creeping and bumping. After the pup has steadied up I go back to pigeons for periodically tuning up the trained dog in the off season. Once or twice, usually in February and March I take the pups to a preserve for some exposure to Huns. This probably more for my fun than the dogs need for exposure but they always have fun and even pen raised Huns (Gray Partridge) hold well for pointers.

The pest control company that I get my Pigeons from doesn't want me to free them within 50 miles of where they were trapped, so I transport mine to a field (in an area with lots of Hawks and Owls) 75 miles away for training sessions. We tagged a few birds at first to see if they would find their way back. Out of the 200 or so Pigeons I've used only two have ever been recaptured. The Pest Company is happy with that arrangement

For most of us amateur trainers the whole business of acquiring and managing birds for training is the most difficult, and sometime expensive part of gundog training. Homing Pigeons are a cheap solution, but few of us city dwellers are able maintain a coop.

I wish you luck.........

User avatar
greg jacobs
Rank: 5X Champion
Posts: 890
Joined: Tue Nov 26, 2013 11:04 am
Location: selah washington

Re: First intro to live birds, 2yo GSP

Post by greg jacobs » Wed Jul 19, 2017 10:02 pm

A 75 mile drive to train isn't unreasonable. And a good solution. Might want to consider picking a training program and sticking to it. With a pup I just take a bag of 4 or 5 birds show each one to them and let them fly one at a time. After a couple you have a pretty excited pup.

Feathers'n'Furr
Rank: Just A Pup
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Jul 08, 2017 5:15 pm

Re: First intro to live birds, 2yo GSP

Post by Feathers'n'Furr » Sat Jul 22, 2017 5:36 am

Thanks y'all! I took her out to some gamelands on the way to pick up my GWP and released them to her one at a time missing some flight feathers, she caught two and the others managed to lead her on a long chase and end up in some lower trees. I'm not terribly concerned they'll make it back to where they came from as they were missing about 6 flight feathers on one wing and we were about 100 miles from the area they were caught. She's definitely got the bug, goes nuts trying to get the pigeons I have caged up right now. Retrieves the two she caught to hand as well so I can't complain for her first introduction to live birds.

Post Reply