Gun Dog Forum

I saved a bag of pheasant wings before I got my brittany pup...having been told by others about wing on a string, seeing videos, etc. I now know not to do wing on a string....but am wondering if there is any other training use for my bag of wings for my 10 week old pup who has never seen a game bird (she does chase my chickens around a bit), or if I should just throw them away.

I don't want to make him a sight hunter....but wonder if they make good chew toys (without creating a hard mouth) or if they're good to hide in the weeds to let him sniff out, or any other use.

Thanks!

I fasten a couple on a canvas dummy. I throw the dummy, fire my blank gun while it is still in the air(don't fire a blank gun until the pup has been exposed to gunfire) It gets them used to objects falling when a gun goes off & feathers in their mouth on the retrieve. Have fun training your pup

deseeker has it - use them on the retrieving dummies later on in the retrieving training.

Save a couple to attach to dummies if you want...throw the rest away.

Got it... thanks to all.

SwitchGrassWPG wrote:Save a couple to attach to dummies if you want...throw the rest away.

What? No soup for you! :roll: :roll:

gundogguy wrote:

SwitchGrassWPG wrote:Save a couple to attach to dummies if you want...throw the rest away.

What? No soup for you! :roll: :roll:

seriously? can you use them for soup?

BuckeyeSteve wrote:

gundogguy wrote:

SwitchGrassWPG wrote:Save a couple to attach to dummies if you want...throw the rest away.

What? No soup for you! :roll: :roll:

seriously? can you use them for soup?

Pretty sure that was a reference to Seinfeld.

They are handy to teach searching for cripples...
Wear gloves to disguise your scent, Fasten wings to your dummy or piece of wood, douse with the matching bottled scent, tie dummy to long rope, put on rubber boots, drag it through tall heavy cover, leave it in a likely patch, go get your puppy- it's important he doesn't see you set this up, start him on edge of cover on a check cord with your particular "hunt dead" or "dead bird" command whatever you prefer. I'm sure you can do all this without the wings, but what the h*** it's more fun and you already have the wings.

What? No soup for you! :roll: :roll:[/quote]

seriously? can you use them for soup?[/quote]

Pretty sure that was a reference to Seinfeld. [/quote]

Correctomundo! Thousands of birds over years put in freezer without any wings attached.

I tend to keep wings and have a bunch in the freezer. I do nothing with them. At this point my dog is 5 years old and I'd consider him a fine grouse dog. I'm not concerned about him "getting familiar with the scent" or worried about him feeling feathers in his mouth - he's retrieved many birds in his short life thus far. However until I bagged that first bird I couldn't find wings to help introduce the scent. So I suppose maybe that's why I keep them. Maybe some day I'll have another pup and will have a use for them again. Till then I'll probably continue to be a wing hoarder lol. Now if I could get some woodcock wings I'd be happy! I've never shot one before so when he flushes them it's more by chance than skill. I'd like to shift that the other way.

I suggest you clean them up, grill them with a nice hot sauce then serve them up to your buddies with a couple of "smoothies" when watching the game.