It is getting hotter which means that our training sessions are shorter and later in the evening. To break things up a little, I thought I’d start the dogs out on tracking just to get a feel for how they will do. I already have a good idea from past hunting experience, but they have never been formally trained in tracking.
I combined casting with tracking. I would have them sit and wait while I walked out to a spot and pull a few feathers from the wing, then drag the wing from that spot to another. I would cast them to the original area where I plucked the feathers.
Starting out, I dragged the wing 10 feet from the original location, then 20, 30, etc. up to about 50 feet.
Sophie:
Sophie did well when cast to the original location and did well tracking the wing. After a couple of casts, she figured it out and began taking a shortcut to the wing before she reached the original location. But at least she was casting in the right direction and this was as much play as anything, so I was happy with her effort.
Dakota:
Dakota was having none of that casting business. As much as I tried fooling her in dragging the wing through tall weeds, she made a beeline for it from the get-go. The hardest part of the session was getting her to “stay” while I dragged the wing. A couple of times I had to catch her and re-cast her; when she did not find the wing in the first few seconds of hunting, she began ever-widening searches that took her farther and farther from the wing. But since I’m interested in what they call “meat dogs” – hunting for the meat and not style points – I need to bring out the best in her according to her personal hunting style.
Tags: casting, hunting dog training, tracking
