Bumpers and bird wings

After Doc shredded a rug and floor runner, I decided he was trying to tell us something, so I took everyone out in the pasture to stretch their legs and get in a little training. With the Labs it was bumpers in the pond and with the Spins, bird wings in the grass, although Doc really wanted into the pond but couldn’t get up the courage. It was just basic stuff, simple retrieves for the Labs and a waist cord for the Spins.

Dakota catches air while Sophie looks on, 5-11-13

Dakota hitting the water, 5-11-13

Dakota making a splash, 5-11-13

At 10 1/2 years old, Sophie can still catch a little air, 5-11-13.

Sophie hits the water with a little splash, 5-11-13.

Doc intensely on point, 5-11-13

Doc pointing a bird wing, 5-11-13

Doc ready to pounce on the bird wing, 5-11-13.

Elvis on point with his tongue out, the temperature was 80 degrees, 5-11-13

Elvis on point, 5-11-13

Mia on point, 5-11-13.

Mia on point, she’s lost some of her steadiness during hunting season, 5-11-13.

First swim of the year

Dakota retrieves, 5-3-13

Sophie retrieves, 5-3-13

Yesterday was such a nice and sunny day that I took the guys for their first swim of the year and introduce Doc to water for the first time. I made two trips, the first with the Labs and the second trip with the Spins; Dakota was so excited that she cried all the way out for her first retrieve. Doc’s a little a fish when it comes to water and just about dragged me into the water in his attempt to investigate the big orange buoys that marked the swimming area.

Mia heading out to retrieve a piece of driftwood, 5-3-13

Mia, Elvis and Doc, 5-3-13

Doc took to the water like a fish, 5-3-13

Mia made a couple of retrieves with a piece of driftwood, but I didn’t give Elvis a chance to retrieve. Doc had enough of watching retrieves, and when I tossed the driftwood for Elvis, Doc lunged, ripped the leash out of my hand, hit the water and went under, then paddled back to shore. I didn’t want that to frighten him of water so we returned to the truck where I crated Mia and Elvis, then let Doc retrieve a bumper several times. I actually thought he was going to swim in his first introduction to the water, but no, chest-deep is as far as he’d go.

Checking things out.

Doc makes his first water retrieve with a bumper, 5-3-13

Doc’s proud of his second retrieve, 5-3-13

E-Collar Signals

The following is a pass-along email from the Retriever Journal.
E-Collar Signals
by Steve Smith

I don’t write many training articles for our magazines because our authors – all of them – are better trainers than I am. On the other hand, I can spell better than most of them. So this is something of a novelty for me, to give you a tip/technique you may not have thought of or tried.

In upland hunting, silence is golden, especially, but of course not limited to, pheasants. These birds hear farm equipment, passing vehicles, all sorts of things. What they don’t hear often is the human voice, and all of us – I’m one of the worst – can’t keep our mouths shut when we hunt.

A few years back for a period of time, and in spite of having a face for radio, I made one of those TV hunting shows you see on Saturdays. It was called Bird Hunter’s Journal, and we did a lot of segments on pheasant hunting. Pheasants make great TV because they are an extremely popular bird, they live in the open and don’t fly like rockets compared with most others, and the camera guys can focus in. The other fellow, my longtime friend Chris Dorsey, and I were to let the bird get well up to make sure the cameras were on it before we shot, and some of the resulting shots were long, which gave us a chance to show off the sponsor’s guns, Beretta over-unders, in action.

The other thing we had to do was yak at each other. Television with two guys silently walking through a field for 22 minutes plus commercials is like watching dough rise, so we had to carry on some semi-witty banter. Naturally, this put the birds on alert and made filming harder. More often than not, the action that ended up being presented as happening in one day was actually the result of two or three days’ filming (which, by the way, was fine with Chris and me).

Television aside, most of us probably talk too much, but here’s an odd little idiosyncrasy: Some people who clam up when they’re hunting and won’t speak to a partner think nothing of hacking on the dog. It’s like the birds will hear him if he talks to you, but not if he talks to the dog. I have had guys – even guides – get out of the truck and put their finger to their lips to indicate silence, then let the dog out that goes in the wrong direction, and they holler at him. That’s all it takes.

Silently communicating with another human is a lot easier than silently communicating with a dog, so we whistle or call out commands, and the birds hear it.

Of course, it can be done; retriever people with fully trained dogs use arm signals because at the distances the dogs often work for long retrieves, a whistle or voice can’t be heard.

What can work, at least it has for me, is a system I use with my pointer Riley: silent communication via the electronic collar. In the field, we need the dog to check in, come in, be out in front of us, and stop. The collar I use has the tone option, though vibrate would work just as well. A tone means check back into view so I can see you; a tone followed by a very light nick-nick, means come in all the way.

Right now, I’m working out some of the same things with Murphy my Lab, but not for entirely the same reason. Riley’s duties are confined to late season pheasant hunting (usually the Dakotas) and duck hunting. Not that she gets cheated; she gets a lot of time in the field.

On the pheasant hunts, I just need her to stay in gun range; she works to the front pretty well, and a tone warns her that she’s stretching it out too much. But it’s the duck hunting where she needs help. On a retrieve in water, sound isn’t a problem in the sense that it can spook game; it’s a problem in that wind and waves and distance can conspire to render even my Acme Thunderer whistle useless. That is what those hand signals are for, as I mentioned earlier. But they are useless if the dog doesn’t see you. You don’t want a dog to turn and look at you for direction constantly (that’s called “popping”), but you need for him to do it when you can see they are obviously off-line and before he becomes completely confused and starts swimming in circles.

If I have to handle, first I have to get her attention. So, a nick-nick means to turn and face me and wait for direction given by hand signals – over, back, come in.

I’d like to be able to have an e-collar signal for each of those commands, so I don’t risk falling overboard waving my arms around, but like I said, I’m not that good a trainer… and Murph isn’t that smart.

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Training 3-23-13

Doc is intimidated no more. Until today he’s been cautious with live birds but a natural at retrieving the dead ones, and Saturday that all changed. He was on them big time, which is what my trainer and I have been hoping and waiting to see. When you see dogs improve from one training session to another like this, it’s clear that the real learning takes place between sessions as they process their training.

Doc has shown himself to be rather steady on point and his drive is getting up to where it should be, so it’ll just be a matter of refining his natural talents. Mia is generally steady on point – she didn’t fail any tests in earning her Jr. Hunt title, however her honoring needs a lot of work. With Mia I’m also going to have to go back and steady her up a bit on pointing so that she’s more consistent with it.

Doc roughed up the birds a little so I put them back in the loft and worked with him and Mia sans birds on “whoa” and honoring. As they ran about the pasture, they’d separate from time to time and when that happened, I’d “whoa” Doc and then wait for Mia to see him and “whoa” her as well. It didn’t take long before she began catching on.

Working with Mia to honor Doc, who has stopped with the “whoa” command. 3-23-13

Sophie and Elettra were next and although I’ve never worked with the Labs on honoring, Sophie did a great job of honoring Elettra’s point. Elettra went on point at a pile of feathers from a dove that had somehow met its demise and I “whoa’d” Sophie who promptly dropped her butt on the ground to wait. It’s too bad her hunting days are over.

Elettra went on point and Sophie honored it, 3-23-13

Elvis and Dakota were last, and that half-hour run in the pasture really aggravated Dakota’s ankle. She began limping a couple of days ago, but that little run in the pasture really hurt her. I gave her an aspirin and some alfalfa pills which helped and by Saturday evening was still limping, but nothing like she had been.

On Friday, Sophie and I went on our therapy visits and she showed a big improvement when it came to walking on cement floors. Perhaps tiling our kitchen floor had something to do with it, but whatever the reason, she did a great job.

Hard running Spins

Friday afternoon meant another session with my trainer, and another reason I don’t put a whole lot of weight on individual training sessions. Dogs just like people have off days, and have days when they’re in the zone. That’s where Mia was Friday. The week before I couldn’t get her to do much of anything but this time out she was she was running hard, on point, and doing a terrific job of retrieving.

Elettra was her steady old self – running hard, searching well, and doing a decent job of pointing although I’d liked her to have been more steady. However one thing I found out with my Spins is that they don’t take pigeons as seriously as game birds, so she’ll do well on partridge or quail.

As for Doc, my trainer just wanted him on birds; rather than working with his pointing, we let him chase, catch and play with the pigeons. He’s still a little intimidated by the live ones but he’s solid on point and give him a dead bird, he’ll retrieve it like nobody’s business. What we’re doing now is just building his confidence with live birds.

We took a few pictures of the guys training which I’ll be posting once I get them back and downloaded, so stay tuned.

Training 3-1-13

My trainer and I had another session Friday afternoon with some great and not-so-great performances from the guys. Our third partner in training was unable to make it, so it was just my Spins and Chris’ English Pointer, Max.

We were unable to make it up to our normal training area due to last weekend’s snow and were forced to turn around at the local shooting range. Several people were shooting high-powered rifles and semi-automatics at the time, which may have rattled Mia a little.

At our new training area, we began with Elettra who did a good job of pointing although needing a little bit of steadying. After working on pointing, we turned to retrieving which didn’t work out quite as well, although she’s getting there. She was a little too rough on the bird which didn’t survive the session.

Next out was Doc – talk about some beautiful and solid pointing! During the course of his session, we determined that he isn’t gunshy and while he is a little intimidated by live birds, he happily retrieves dead birds to hand.

Mia and Max were braced together for our last training session, and Mia went into one of those “not today” modes. She refused to spread out and hunt, but rather hovered around me. She did go on point a couple of times when we came across fresh Pheasant tracks. But she wasn’t quite herself, maybe rattled by the earlier gunfire or maybe a little intimidated by Max’s high energy, I’m not sure.

I decided to stay after our training session and let the guys just run free and stretch their legs; specifically, I wanted Mia to leave with the memory of running rather than hovering around me. And run they did! All three of them made a beeline down the ridge where we had been training, checking out each and every spot a pigeon had been planted. At about 250-300 yards I was just about to call them back when Mia stopped for a moment, then headed straight back to me. Elettra and Doc soon followed and at about 50 yards, I could see that Mia had found and was retrieving the dead pigeon from our training, making it about a 250 yard retrieve.

Training photo fest

All in all, we had a very good training session today and I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. It was a good group of dogs for our first training session of the year: a 7-month Brittany Spaniel, a German Shorthair, an English Pointer, and my three Spins – Elettra, Mia and Doc. It took 4-wheel drive to bust through some of the snow drifts and there was a darned cold wind blowing. My Levi jacket kept me warm enough but my hands and ears would have liked to froze off.

Working on the Whoa command with the Brittany Spaniel and German Shorthair Pointer, 2-22-13

The Brittany pup stole the German Shorthair’s point, 2-22-13.

Working with Elettra, who is on point. 2-22-13

Working on Elettra’s steadiness, 2-22-13

Mia is honoring the English Pointer, 2-22-13.

Max, the English Pointer, on a beautiful point, 2-22-13.

Chris works with Doc, who is on point. 2-22-13

Doc retrieves a pigeon that didn’t survive the training session, 2-22-13.

That slow time of year

Dakota and Sophie watch Doc train on the Whoa command

Around here, I think it’s probably about the only time of the year when things really slow down as it applies to the dogs. Hunting season is over, water work isn’t really practical, and the snow prevents us from getting out to our regular training grounds. So that means more frequent trips to the pasture and a lot of indoor work.

Doc is steady on the Whoa command

Daily workouts on the treadmill are keeping the guys in shape, and even Doc is becoming accustomed to it. Granted, his workouts are limited to a couple of times a week, just a few minutes at a time, and at a very slow pace; but being treat-motivated as he is, it’s something he’s beginning to look forward to.

Doc is steady on Whoa without the waist cord

Aside from the treadmill, Doc’s training is primarily obedience. He’s mastered “kennel up”, obediently comes when called (but only if he feels like it), is quickly catching on to “heel”, and is doing very well with “whoa”. I’ll normally start Doc out on the waist cord with “heel”, then “whoa”, and after he’s steady with “whoa” a couple of times, I remove the waist cord. As with the treadmill, this is only a couple of times a week and for no more than 10 minutes.

Rethinking Prattle and Pace

PDJ Pass Along Email
December 2012

Coming Soon: Rethinking Prattle and Pace
By Tom Huggler, Eastern Encounters

I once asked an experienced trainer of pointing dogs what was the most important tool he could recommend. Expecting “the e-collar” for an answer, imagine my surprise when he said, “Duct tape. Nothing is more important than a roll of duct tape.”

“Huh?” I wondered, “How’s that?”

“Tear off a strip as wide as your mouth,” he continued. “Then use your imagination.”

The trainer, who has since retired, explained that most bird dog owners talk too much to their dogs: “Here!,” “Come around!,” and “Hunt ‘em up!” are good examples, repeated far too often, and you may well have your own running commentary of stock phrases.

Why do some of us constantly jabber away or blow on the whistle until our neck veins swell like a soaked clothesline? Is it because we are trying to manage a dog that ranges too far or is otherwise out of control? If so, consider the checkcord or e-collar. They are far more effective than hollering or whistling all the time. If we want the dog to turn left or turn right, we can simply walk that way. A four-footed partner that truly is a “partner” (one that wants to please and hunt with us), will get the idea and fall in. Some of the best ones I’ve owned, mostly setters, learned to take hand signals; one dog that grew deaf relied on hand gestures almost exclusively the last few years of his life. I shot a lot of birds over that faithful pal and sorely miss him today.

Or do we yell and whistle to let the dog know where we are at all times? With few exceptions, our partner always knows where we are, or at least where we last were. To my mind, the well-trained dog wants to hunt with you and for you, and it’s his responsibility to check in, to keep tabs on your whereabouts. A steady stream of noise from us is a reminder that he can freelance anywhere and we will follow him.

I know some hunters, including a couple of highly successful ones, who turn their dogs loose and never expect the animal to check in. Their logic is simple: The dog knows how to find birds, and the more ground he covers, the better the chance he will make contact, so why hold him back? Let him go and then find him—hopefully still on point—with the aid of a beeper or GPS tracker. Although I don’t subscribe to that thinking, I admit that it works for some. It depends mostly on the dog and whether he is mature and experienced.

The rest of this article will appear in the January/February 2013 issue. If you’re a subscriber, stay tuned! This issue will soon mail! The full table of contents is available on our website on our Coming Soon page.

In early December, we launched a redesigned website because let’s face it, we needed to catch up with the times. Here’s what you can expect – we made a few changes this time around – when you visit www.pointingdogjournal.com:

- We removed the Subscriber Only section, so feature articles, which will change at least once every month, will be viewable by all. Our annual Traveling Wingshooter outlooks are still on the website but easier to find and share with others!

- An Online Marketplace for time-sensitive material, such as training seminars, litters, etc. Get the word out fast!

- A new participating feature called “My Bird Dog.” Every month we’ll give you a prompt and you send in a photo for our consideration. The winner and honorable mention will be featured on the website. All winners will be posted for public voting. The overall winner will be featured in an issue of The Pointing Dog Journal.

- Overall, a fresh look and easier ways to sign up for a no-obligation issue, pass along email, subscribe, or renew.

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Mid season training

Elettra on point with Mia honoring, 12-7-12.

Friday morning, rather than hunting, I spent a little time with the guys working on steadiness and honoring. It’s been a challenge adjusting to wild birds after having been trained on planted ones, so I wanted to do a little refresher to make sure they were still on track. I also wanted to start training them on honoring, since they haven’t had a lot of opportunities while hunting this year.

We worked with my two remaining pigeons and partridge, and both Mia and Elettra did quite well in spite of the fact that my last white pigeon didn’t survive the training session. I put Elettra on point with the first bird and then brought Mia in to honor before flushing it for Elettra. Mia did a great job of remaining steady while Elettra gave chase. By the time I got over to Elettra and the bird, it was in rough shape so I finished it off.

Mia on point with Elettra honoring, 12-7-12

The second bird was for Mia, and when she went on point I brought Elettra around to honor. After steadying Elettra to honor Mia, I flushed the bird for Mia, however it slipped the card and flew off. The partridge was the last bird and I gave Elettra the point then brought Mia around to honor, which she did nicely. After returning Mia and Elettra to the house, I wanted see what Doc would do with the partridge since it was out and already carded. I really wanted to put Doc on a pigeon but since it had flown off, later returning to the loft, I had only the partridge too work with. Normally I wouldn’t put a pup his age on a bird but I figured that Doc wouldn’t be intimidated.

Immediately after turning him loose, Doc hit on the pigeon scent from Mia and Elettra’s earlier training session. The wind was around 20 mph but little Doc proved he could keep his nose to the ground as he worked his way upwind to the patch of grass where the bird had been planted. After running the pasture a bit, I brought Doc around to the partridge that I’d planted for him, and he worked his way up the scent cone and right onto the bird which had buried itself into the grass.

After the morning’s training session, Elvis and I made our scheduled visit to the assisted living center and then our first visit to the rehab center. He did great and the people we visited really enjoyed him. Two hours of visiting was a little long for him given that some of the rooms were kept a little hot.