A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

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work765
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A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by work765 » Sun May 12, 2019 6:52 pm

So on Friday night I spent a little time catching pigeons down at the beach close to my house. They roost under the pier and I managed to grab five of them and was planning on using them this week for some simple drills with my pup. I just do the head under the wing technique and plant one at a time. And let the dog point and then kick the bird up and it flys away.
I live In an apartment building and put these pigeons in a cage in a corner in my designated parking spot. It’s kind of hidden and private. But some kids saw the pigeons and then one of my neighbors, a girl in her late 20’s decided to free them because she thought I was going to kill them. I have a hidden cam to watch all my stuff and have video of them releasing the birds.

I’m just mainly furious that this woman went into my stuff and opened the cage and let them out. I called her yelling at her. And she apologized, blah blah. Said she would replace them. Which she most likely won’t.

Rant over. Thanks


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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by JONOV » Mon May 13, 2019 11:40 am

Next time keep them in a kennel where they can't see them. Like an airline dog kennel. Shielded from view by other stuff.

Pedro
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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by Pedro » Mon May 13, 2019 12:59 pm

Woman, late 20's, lives in your building, wants to replace your pigeons...sounds like a date.

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by work765 » Mon May 13, 2019 1:07 pm

Pedro wrote:Woman, late 20's, lives in your building, wants to replace your pigeons...sounds like a date.
We are somewhat friends. I guess one of the young kids was probably wanting to free them- Young girl in her teens. Here in Santa Monica, Los Angeles- CA. Everyone is a "bleep" activist. So the girl probably egged on my friend who, during the spur of the moment thought she was doing something heroic.

Someday I’ll have an actual house and not live in this "bleep" city


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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by Steve007 » Mon May 13, 2019 2:43 pm

work765 wrote:
Mon May 13, 2019 1:07 pm
Pedro wrote:Woman, late 20's, lives in your building, wants to replace your pigeons...sounds like a date.
We are somewhat friends. I guess one of the young kids was probably wanting to free them- Young girl in her teens. Here in Santa Monica, Los Angeles- CA. Everyone is a "bleep" activist. So the girl probably egged on my friend who, during the spur of the moment thought she was doing something heroic.

Someday I’ll have an actual house and not live in this "bleep" city

Heck, I once dated a genuine animal-rights girl for nine months --- yes, I lied to her about my bird hunting--- and she once invited me to picket a pigeon shoot. No joke! They had a sympathetic vet with them to save the wounded pigeons that escaped out of the circle and came down.

I declined to attend. I was forced to threaten her with violence when she wanted to open the front door of my house and let my bird dog "run free". It was quite an experience. And yes, she was a pervert. :wink:

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by birddogger2 » Mon May 13, 2019 5:03 pm

work -

Just a thought.

You said you were on friendly terms with the young lady that released your pigeons. If so, you might consider calling her or knocking on her door and smoothing over some of the rough spots. She probably thought she was doing something good by letting those flying rats loose and she got yelled at it for her trouble.

If she was sincere about replacing the birds, maybe you could show here where you get them from and, more importantly, offer to show her how you use them. If your dog is steady to wing and will not try to catch the bird, I'd bet she would get a charge out of watching a pointing dog do what it does. I have seen it a few thousand times and I still think it is pretty neat stuff. I'd be surprised if she was not pretty amazed to see something like that for the first time.

I'm not suggesting anything more than taking the opportunity to turning a potential enemy into someone who at least understands what you are doing and why and maybe, just maybe... gets a charge out of watching a bird dog do its thing.

RayG

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by Max2 » Tue May 14, 2019 7:14 pm

I was thinking the same as Ray G. Invite the kids also.

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by work765 » Tue May 14, 2019 8:35 pm

An update. She actually went out and bought me some pigeons! She gave them to me last night and with a big apology. She said in the moment with the kids it was this whole “free Willy” thing. And they all got carried away. We talked for a bit and things smoothed over.

But now, instead of rats with wings from my city. I have two really nice looking adult pigeons and three young ones(they still have their baby feathers on their heads) all five pigeons don’t look like the street variety. One is actually pretty looking!

So now I’m in this internal conundrum as to what to do with these new birds she spent money on.

Plan is to clip flight feathers and just reuse them a lot. Which I don’t even know if I can with a 9 month old pointer.

Original plan with the free city birds was to pin and dizzy the birds and plant them and once my dog pointed, they would fly away. That’s what I’ve done in the past.


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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by birddogger2 » Tue May 14, 2019 9:04 pm

Work -

I suggest you get a small cage or two for the new birds. I purchased a couple a few years ago from a mail order place. . Can't recall where. This way you can "plant" a bird in a cage and the dog cannot get to the bird.

Then, when your dog points the bird in the cage, you can walk in and flush, slipping a feral bird out of your bird bag and letting it fly.

When the dog gets older and more reliably steady to wing and shot, you can plant the birds in a kick cage with a 25-30ft cord attached to the bird's legs. Several dog training outfits sell them. When the bird hits the end of the cord, it falls out of the sky, so if you fire your blank gun just before it hits the end of the cord...it is almost as tempting as a real shot bird and again, no harm to the bird. I tie a 12 oz. bank sinker to the end of the cord and I have not had a pigeon fly off with it.

I think your neighbor is a stand up person. You are fortunate to have someone like that for a neighbor.

RayG

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by shags » Wed May 15, 2019 4:30 am

Just go ahead and use the pretty birds in the way you intended to use ones caught by you. Your neighbor replaced your birds, and if she bought expensive ones, that's on her, not you.

If you decide to reuse your new fancy birds, make sure if you tether them that they are weighted well. You really will have folks legitimately up in arms if the birds get tangled in a tree or power line and are left to starve.

A trainer friend used a pigeon pole in a small yard. A length of bamboo or one-inch pvc pipe stuck in the ground, with string attached to the top and a fastener for the bird at the end of the string. The bird could be placed in the cover (tall grass) then flushed, and come back down when it hit the end of the string. He could get a couple or three flushes each. You can move the poles around the training area so the dog doesn't get sticky, and take the stuff home when you're finished for the day.

The fasteners were those barrel shaped button things you see on some jackets, where you pull cord through to tighten hoodies, sleeves, or waists. Sorry, don't know what they are called :?

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by averageguy » Wed May 15, 2019 4:39 am

Work,

without a coop I do not see how you can productively use the young birds. They need to learn to fly and build their strength for flying. Without a coop where they can return, you have no way to fly them and get them back. Working your 9 month old pointer on young birds which cannot and do not fly well will do nothing but set your training way back. Go back and catch your ferals and proceed as you had intended is my advice.

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by cjhills » Wed May 15, 2019 5:47 am

This is my take also.
What happens with the bird tethered to a pole after the point and flush.
Dogs are very quick to recognize phony setups...……...Cj

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by shags » Wed May 15, 2019 6:36 am

On a pigeon pole, the bird is flushed, flies the length of the cord, and "plants" itself. Fire a blank or not, whatever you wish.
The cord can be pretty long depending on your facility, my friend's was about 40 - 50 feet. The pole can be moved from field to field. You wouldn't want to do lots of point/flush with the same bird in the same place in the same session.

The set up is no more phony than using cages, kick traps, launchers, or planting birds with their heads under their wings. You do what you must, use what you have, and do the best you can with it.

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by averageguy » Wed May 15, 2019 7:34 am

shags wrote:
Wed May 15, 2019 6:36 am
On a pigeon pole, the bird is flushed, flies the length of the cord, and "plants" itself. Fire a blank or not, whatever you wish.
The cord can be pretty long depending on your facility, my friend's was about 40 - 50 feet. The pole can be moved from field to field. You wouldn't want to do lots of point/flush with the same bird in the same place in the same session.

The set up is no more phony than using cages, kick traps, launchers, or planting birds with their heads under their wings. You do what you must, use what you have, and do the best you can with it.
Sorry but this claim is false and potentially quite harmful to Work's puppy's progression, which is why I speak up.

I can set a tip up cage or a launcher in natural cover and present strong flying pigeons in a way that is very near the behavior of a wild bird. Particularly using the launcher (which always precedes using a tip up cage in my training).

Pigeon poles are of limited value and then for puppies much younger than 9 months. A 9 months any bold pup that I hope to be working with would be doing back flips on the end of a check cord presenting birds on the end of a pigeon pole, letting them flutter back to the ground like a wounded bird not even 15 yards from the puppy. No way would I ever do that with a 9 month old pup is my input.

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by birddogger2 » Wed May 15, 2019 8:03 am

Guys -

There are lots of ways to get from here to there with a bird dog. None of them are perfect. You do what you can do with the situation you find yourself in. The goal should be to have the dog steady to wing. If you want steady to wing shot and fall...great... but steady to wing is all a hunter really needs. However you get the dog there...is OK.

FWIW, I trained about four bird dogs to point and hold using pigeons in my side yard, which was about 50X100 of lawn. They did just fine. You do what you can do. The also learned a bunch of other stuff in the yard, but that is another topic. The last one of those was taken to the level of steady to wing shot and fall and had this side of a dozen horseback field trial placements. It CAN be done. \

Just because you will not train a dog using a certain technique, does not mean it cannot be done. I don't use a lot of techniques that others use, simply because I am not as well versed in them and am not as comfortable with them. That doesn't mean they don't work. Just because I don't use a whoa post... does not mean I can't and if I needed to with a specific dog...I would. Conversely, I have done a lot of things for training that others flat refused to do...but they worked...for me and my dog. Keep the goal of the training in the front of your mind and work to that.

I have never used a pigeon pole either, but that does not mean it will not work. It might work just fine.

With a nine month old pup, you can do whatever you want with birds...as long as the dog is on a check cord. If the check cord is tied to a tree or a fence post after it establishes point... I have found it is kinda hard for the dog to get to the bird.

I train by myself all the time and there are things you must do differently when you cannot be holding the dog and flushing the bird t the same time. Do you have to mix it up to keep the dog interested? Of course!

RayG

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by Pedro » Wed May 15, 2019 8:30 am

Well said Ray.

Lots of ways to train/work bird dogs. Educate yourself and do what works for you and your situation. I regularly use carded birds to good effect, especially with young dogs.

If it's not a wild bird, it's all "phony" to some degree. That doesn't make it wrong.

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by averageguy » Wed May 15, 2019 11:41 am

So a bizarre chain of events leads to a release of strong flying feral pigeons which were replaced with squabs which are not even feathered out.

And somehow it now becomes so critically important to use squab pigeons that cannot even fly that folks are now posting methods that no mainstream pointing dog trainer's programs use or recommend. Wow.

Work,

I saw you posted the Perfect Start and Perfect Finish DVDs for sale a while back. I hope you watched them and if you did you have a much better roadmap of how to develop your pup than using carded pigeons or even worse a pigeon pole. Those are for much younger puppies and or dogs which have a poor/low prey drive and need to have their bird drive improved. Otherwise they will do nothing but set you back and possibly really bad.

Why do I say that? Because I have seen it.

2 weeks ago I was at a Broke Dog clinic where there was a Weim which was severely blinking birds. First the dog had been allowed to crowd and catch pen raised birds resulting in the dog creeping, jumping in and catching every bird it found. That problem then required such a severe level of corrections that the dog decided birds were not worth it and began blinking them when the handler approached. It was very sad to watch and completely avoidable.

The clinic I attended prior to this latest one had a PP from the most respected PP breeder in the US. The dog flagged its tail and barked non-stop when it was restrained on birds. Another promising dog screwed up catching pen raised birds...

If all you do is teach your dog to come when called, properly introduce birds and gunfire, nurture its natural retrieve and then take the dog hunting, get it into a bunch of wild birds and only shoot those that the pup points, you will very likely turn out an excellent wild bird dog.

Inexperienced trainers using poor flying birds have ruined or setback far more puppies than they have ever helped. You are far better off doing nothing if the alternative is to use poor flying birds presented in ways which do nothing but excite your young dog to chase and catch them. Your pup will point wild birds when she finds them if you do not condition her to do otherwise. So you need to make sure if you use training birds you understand why you are using them, as well as how to best present them to avoid creating problems which will not exist unless you create them.

Be very careful how you present your training birds and never use poorly flying birds. 9 month old Puppies with a strong bird drive will want to chase and catch low flying, poorly flying birds. Which past first bird introductions does nothing helpful towards the end result you seek.

Your ferals will flush and fly strongly away which is what you want. Ditch the squabs, go back and catch your Ferals again and save yourself and your puppy a whole lot of trouble otherwise.

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by shags » Wed May 15, 2019 1:37 pm

AG, It's nice that you share your experience and expertise, but some of us also have our own experience and consider ourselves fairly successful trainers. For instance, I've seen a couple of Ray G's dogs and he has done a great job with them. They are bold, stylish, and broke. My own dogs are generally pretty well broke to flush and shot by the time they're 9-10 months old, and go on to be top competitors in my area. So I'd say a good many of us have some valid advice, with methods that worked for us, judging by the results we have had.

I don't see anywhere in this thread where Work was advised to put his dog on unfledged pigeons or any other type of poor flying bird. I'd put money on it that no one here who done any training would tell someone with a young dog to do that.

I hope folks who read this site will take training advice and think about it and work with what works for them, and maybe ask questions if they need to have something clarified. That's a good start in learning to avoid problems like you described above. Which by the way, I've seen come about whether the birds were poor or great flyers...some folks can wreck a dog through heavyhandedness and harshness regardless of bird quality.

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by work765 » Wed May 15, 2019 5:05 pm

Thanks everyone! this turned into quite a bit of info to digest. I have zero experience with bird dogs and how to train them.
averageguy wrote:
Wed May 15, 2019 11:41 am
I had the videos Perfect Start/finish and pretty much have only been working on the basics from that. I'm just in the begging stages, where I plant a bird and keep my dog on a check cord, and then once she points, I flush it, and I let her chase after it, and never get it. Thats the only bird work I have done thus far with her. I have a good chunk of her basic obedience down: here, sit/stay, heel, whoa. And i've been slowly working with a new e-collar as well.
birddogger2 wrote:
Tue May 14, 2019 9:04 pm

I suggest you get a small cage or two for the new birds. I purchased a couple a few years ago from a mail order place. . Can't recall where. This way you can "plant" a bird in a cage and the dog cannot get to the bird.

RayG
RayG, as you suggest; I'm planning on buying a used large cage to keep some pigeons on hand most of the time. I think my neighbors will be less likely to give me grief if they see them in a big comfy cage; and not the small-ish pigeon trap I had them in.


I will say after reading everyones comments, a question came to mind. I've been dizzying the birds to be able to plant them, and when i go to flush them, they don't really do a natural flush. They usually flutter off and take a second to wake up, and then finally make their way airborne. So, maybe i need to revisit that whole process.

I have also been avoiding buying any launchers or too much training equipment, because I'll be sending her off to a Pro trainer in July. I however spend a lot of time hiking in the mountains with my dog, and exercising her. So I figured why not start working with her as much as I can. So I''ll usually just take some birds in my backpack or a bag and do it in a field-y type area in the mountains when on our usual hikes.

I live close to a large mountain range, but unfortunately it sees some heavy foot traffic. So any type of regular work with a blank pistol would probably get me landed in jail.

I'm going to do some research on weighing the pigeons down or using some sort of tether. I believe I can fashion some sort of kick cage and keep the cost low. This would give me more natural flushes and the ability to keep the birds.

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by birddogger2 » Thu May 16, 2019 7:34 am

work -

Couple of things...first and foremost...do not be afraid of using a blank pistol. It is NOT a firearm(and this is per FEDERAL law) and unless there is some sort of noise ordinance that prevents folks from using child's capguns, the police have no grounds to say anything, because a capgun is essentially all that it is. For that matter, a child's capgun is really all that you need for what you are doing . A nice pink plastic one to show them might be good.

Now as to the matter of planting birds. If you can saw a hole in a 1/2 piece of plywood you can build a "launcher".

Basically you cut a hole, about 5" in a rectangular piece of plywood, make a bowl shaped "hat" out of 1/2" hardware cloth and nail or staple it over the hole and nail a 1" X 1" runner to each side of the plywood. Attach an eyehook and a length of string. You put the pigeon under the "sled" so that it is mostly under the hardware cloth. When the dog comes in and points, you pull the sled over the bird with the string and this tumbles the bird and causes it to fly off.

If you have a copy of Paul Long's book, the sled is described in there.

If you don't have a copy of Paul Long's book, you probably should.

RayG

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by gonehuntin' » Thu May 16, 2019 9:21 am

Work, it doesn't really seem to be a problem but you might invite your neighbor to a training session with pup. I'm betting, since you're not shooting the birds, she might find it fascinating. Another thing you can do to preserve birds is to use a fishing rod. I've posted a video of it on here before.

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by birds » Thu May 16, 2019 2:02 pm

work - yes - let us know how things go with this "neighbor". Puppies (and kittens and horses and etc.) have been used as 'tools" to break all kinds of thick ice.... :wink: Just don't try and explain to her all of the various recommendations and opinions you have read here on how to use pigeons. Pick one and act like you know what you are doing or the ice may thicken even further. If it doesn't work just blame it on one of these guys.

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by work765 » Sat May 18, 2019 7:48 am

[IMG]//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201905 ... d79058.jpg[/IMG]

Got this yesterday for $25 on Craigslist! Keeping it at a friends and hopefully full with birds.

I’m going to look into the bird sled. Seems easy enough.

Thanks everyone for all the help and suggestions!


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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by Sharon » Sat May 18, 2019 1:07 pm

shags wrote:
Wed May 15, 2019 1:37 pm
AG, It's nice that you share your experience and expertise, but some of us also have our own experience and consider ourselves fairly successful trainers. For instance, I've seen a couple of Ray G's dogs and he has done a great job with them. They are bold, stylish, and broke. My own dogs are generally pretty well broke to flush and shot by the time they're 9-10 months old, and go on to be top competitors in my area. So I'd say a good many of us have some valid advice, with methods that worked for us, judging by the results we have had.

I don't see anywhere in this thread where Work was advised to put his dog on unfledged pigeons or any other type of poor flying bird. I'd put money on it that no one here who done any training would tell someone with a young dog to do that.

I hope folks who read this site will take training advice and think about it and work with what works for them, and maybe ask questions if they need to have something clarified. That's a good start in learning to avoid problems like you described above. Which by the way, I've seen come about whether the birds were poor or great flyers...some folks can wreck a dog through heavyhandedness and harshness regardless of bird quality.


Well Shags you must be doing something right. :)

Her little Eddie won the Open Limited stake last weekend. There were 14 or 16 dogs entered. He's 10 years old and...was trained using a pigeon pole LOL.
" We are more than our gender, skin color, class, sexuality or age; we are unlimited potential, and can not be defined by one label." quote A. Bartlett

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by shags » Sat May 18, 2019 1:37 pm

LOL thanks, Sharon :D

I just send in the checks and drive Ed to the trials...he does all the hard work. He's been a lot of fun.

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Re: A little venting about my neighbor. Not that interesting

Post by averageguy » Tue May 21, 2019 3:53 pm

shags wrote:
Wed May 15, 2019 1:37 pm
AG, It's nice that you share your experience and expertise, but some of us also have our own experience and consider ourselves fairly successful trainers. For instance, I've seen a couple of Ray G's dogs and he has done a great job with them. They are bold, stylish, and broke. My own dogs are generally pretty well broke to flush and shot by the time they're 9-10 months old, and go on to be top competitors in my area. So I'd say a good many of us have some valid advice, with methods that worked for us, judging by the results we have had.

I don't see anywhere in this thread where Work was advised to put his dog on unfledged pigeons or any other type of poor flying bird. I'd put money on it that no one here who done any training would tell someone with a young dog to do that.

I hope folks who read this site will take training advice and think about it and work with what works for them, and maybe ask questions if they need to have something clarified. That's a good start in learning to avoid problems like you described above. Which by the way, I've seen come about whether the birds were poor or great flyers...some folks can wreck a dog through heavyhandedness and harshness regardless of bird quality.
Shags,

Everything is not a competition, at least to me. I have never had any doubt that you and Ray G have trained some nice dogs, as have I, but the focus here is advising a person who is attempting to train their first dog.

The odds of a first time trainer working alone using poor flying young birds presented on the end of a pigeon pole on a 40 foot string to a high prey drive German Breed 9 month old puppy, doing more good than harm are extremely low.

Those odds do not improve if he uses carded pigeons at this age of the pup.

You speak of heavy handed pressure commonly being a problem and that is exactly in line with my comments.

Presenting low, poor flying, fluttering to the ground short distances away birds to a 9 month old puppy (which is very capable of running them to ground and catching them) requires a lot of pressure from the handler which is very often counter productive to the pup's development.

That is a grossly inferior approach vs letting the pup work a bird set in natural cover in silence and popping a strong flying bird from a launcher and letting it fly strongly up and away if the pup advances into the scent cone. Those two approaches are at opposite ends of the spectrum for their degree of natural presentation of the bird and the level of handler pressure placed on the pup while it works the bird. I say nothing and therefore place zero pressure on my puppies while they learn that advancing scares the bird into flight and never results in a retrieve. Zero pressure at that stage of training.

Work has already noted his birds set on the ground are flushing poorly and slowly. That places more pressure on a young dog which is not helpful at this stage of its development.

The key to productive use of training birds on bold pups 9 months and older is to present them in ways which are the most similar to a wild bird behavior as possible, assuming the stage of training is accomplishing some positive conditioning of the pup for finding and pointing birds. Down the road Steadiness training can and will include some walking of birds in plain sight of a dog but there is no indication this trainer and puppy are anywhere near ready for that at this time.

I frankly think it is most often not feasible or realistic to attempt to type enough words in an internet response to convey enough information to person on this subject, which is why I most commonly recommend a DVD series and local training group. That is the far more realistic path to helping folks.

Work had the Perfect Start/Perfect Finish DVDs and would be best off following them. In another thread he asked questions about using an ecollar which indicate he has not adequately studied the DVDs he unfortunately sold or he would otherwise have an excellent understanding of their productive introduction and use in training. Another easy/obvious example of how DVDs are far superior to a paragraph of advice from a stranger on the internet directed to a person and puppy they have never seen or met. Those DVDs demonstrate and stress how training varies and progresses at different rates with different dogs which is extremely beneficial for a new trainer to expect and adapt to.

I know avoiding training mistakes is worth everything possible in our control, as correcting mistakes is far more difficult. Other than poor gun introduction, I would venture to say more young pointing dogs are setback in their development with poor use/presentation of poor flying training birds than any other area of training. Done wrong it is anti-training and I have seen it far too many times.

When I see a train wreck coming I speak up, and did, and will again if I see fit.

If you read Work's update he clearly states that the replacement birds the woman bought him are not even feathered out yet.

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