reader4 wrote:Excellent thoughts -- thank you. Dog is conditioned to gunfire. We've not yet worked on gunfire + marked retrieves.
AverageGuy: My pup is about 2 months behind yours in age and, by the looks of it, development as well. He's still pointing a bit close (our training grounds have pretty heavy cover) so we're working on increasing his confidence in an earlier point. The approach you describe is the direction we were moving... I do work with a training group so it's reasonable for me to have my hands ready to hold him steady to wing and fall (or to use a checkcord) while someone else flushes and shoots. I suppose the underlying question was simply whether it would be beneficial to do so. The hybrid approach seems logical to me.
I'm curious about the approach of not ever using "whoa" on point. I understand we aren't training a point, we are developing the natural instinct to point. I also believe we should teach by example more than command. That said, isn't the purpose of working so hard to establish a steady "whoa" so that it can be used to enforce steadiness once point is established? It's one thing to allow relocating, and wild birds certainly help him understand the need to stay put, but at the moment these are planted chukar that aren't running. Isn't that the ideal time to reinforce with "whoa"?
Some will say yes, some will say no. I am in the No camp.
I use strong flying pigeons in launchers and remain silent as you can see in my videos. I am letting the pup interact with the bird however it chooses, but if it advances into the scent cone, I launch the bird and it flies away. No retrieve for the pup. That approach is why you see my pup pointing hard at first scent maybe 30 yards off the bird. And it is why she started holding while I flushed even as I draw it out, kicking around a good bit before I launch the bird. I consistently launch the bird if she moves before it flies. So now she understands the only way she gets the bird in her mouth is when she remains on point while I flush. All done in silence. I have taught the Whoa commmand from an early age which is also posted in that thread, but I have never used while the pup is working a bird. Pointing is for the pup to learn by interacting with the bird, Whoa is for downstream steadiness training.
Which is why I was able to shoot birds for her without the problems Urban Redneck speaks of his post. The key is to never shoot the bird if the pup moves after pointing and always launch the bird the moment the pup moves after smelling the bird in the first place. The whole process is really simple and centered on using pigeons in a presentation that is as close to how a wild bird behaves as we can setup and still have control over where the bird is and the bird always flushing and flying away strong, (thus avoiding caught birds).
Also seen is I am allowing her to break and chase when the bird flies. That is where Whoa will come in when I start requiring her to remain steady through shot and fall after her first hunting season. Whoa is for after the bird is flying and will not be given as a precaution. Rather the command will be completely trained in many situations but away from birds. Then I will fly birds in front of her but not pointing or in a scent cone and use the trained Whoa command to teach her she must remain still while the birds fly away. When she does that is when I will start requiring her to do the same on a bird she is pointing.
The Perfect Start and Perfect Finish DVDs are where I learned the approach I am summarizing here.
The approach I used as seen in my videos was done prior to my pup's NA which was just run this past Saturday. NA Prize 1 112 so it seemed to work out fine for us. We will now start hunting wild birds September 1st. I acknowledge she will have a habit of chasing flying birds which I will have to break. I did with both of prior two pups. The last went UT1 at 17 months of age and I posted a video of him slamming on point, standing to WSF and retrieving to hand a couple of weeks ago on this board. So I know the approach works and also know it is not the only approach that works.
Best of Luck. Your pup would learn to point with exposure to wild birds, so make sure your use of training birds is very productive or otherwise you are better off not doing it at all. I see too much unproductive use of training birds on puppies. The reason is not because it can't be done but rather because it must be done correctly. Which is actually simple to do. The single most common error is people want to see their puppy point so bad they let it road into the scent cone instead of flying the bird the moment the pup indicates it smells the bird but does not point and remain pointing. That simple.
by reader4 » Sun Aug 16, 2020 3:09 pm 
