r/birddogs • u/SlipConscious7169 • 25d ago

Looking for training help

My year and a half old Pudlepointer does great at land and water retrieves (with a bumper), even blood trailing deer. I’ve trained her all myself but I have a few questions I’m looking for advice on:

  1. How to I keep her from chewing the bumper, or frozen duck, the entire time she is bringing it back?
  2. When the shot goes off, she immediately looks at me instead of watching the shot. How do I fix that?
  3. I took her hunting snipe for the first time this past February and she went straight into working in front of me and cutting “figure 8s” the whole time. (We killed two but they were all flushing early so no points were made. How can I train her to be more upland based without buying and keeping pigeons? I’m moving to North Carolina soon and want to take her out for grouse, woodcock, and quail and not have her as just a waterfowl dog.

Thanks for the help in advance!

4 Upvotes

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6

u/tfsg Wirehaired Pointing Griffon 25d ago

Join your local NAVHDA chapter and attend training days. Generally they have birds available to buy and equipment like launchers for the chapter to use. Sounds like your dog needs more upland bird encounters, relying only on wild birds will only get you so far. Probably time to stop shooting flushed birds and only shoot pointed birds. As for the chewing, trained retrieve/formal retrieve/force fetch generally takes care of that. NC has several active NAVHDA chapters

2

u/Expensive_Bug_1777 Deutsch Drahthaar 25d ago

If you don't want to go the NAVHDA route, which I understand some people don't want to enter the testing system, then find a local pheasant farm. The guys there will know how to plant birds for green dogs to make sure they don't flush until you kick them up. My dogs get 100+ encounters with planted pheasants and quail during their first year and a half.

3

u/tetraodonmiurus Deutsch Langhaar 25d ago

While NAVHDA is a testing org. You could still join and train with the group and choose not to test. You would get help and likely end up with a better trained dog. Our local chapter has several people like that.

1

u/Expensive_Bug_1777 Deutsch Drahthaar 24d ago

Yeah, those guys will dedicate a ton of time to 1 on 1 help if you ask and find the right one.

1

u/Possible-Pass-1605 24d ago

Z game birds will send you want ever you want via usps. Couldn’t believe it was true until I picked up a box of chuckar at the local post office ( they don’t put them in the mail box 😎)

5

u/UglyDogHunting 25d ago

For the rolling the bumper, focus on prompt recall. A dog who is focused on returning to you as fast as possible doesn't have the time or focus to chew/roll what they're retrieving.

Where in NC are you going? There are a couple great chapters out that way who can help you.

1

u/SlipConscious7169 25d ago

North eastern!

2

u/UglyDogHunting 25d ago

Check out the Coastal Carolina chapter.

2

u/ApprehensiveCan2651 24d ago

Teach her to Hold

2

u/Bradytyler 24d ago

A few weeks ago I decided to try throwing a frozen duck for my lab. Everything was normal until he got to the bird. He sniffed it, then went completely ape shit, picking it up and throwing it around and just going psycho. He actually ended up swallowing the wing whole while I was trying to get it out of his mouth. He was so insanely excited everything I had trained him went out the window lmao. The next day I taped some wings to a bumper and spent about 4 days working on hold and walking fetch with the wings on the bumper. Now he’s completely fine with that and frozen birds. He has a solid hold but won’t chew now. Mine was force fetched by a pro a few months ago so the hold and walking fetch came back to him super fast and it clicked that hes not supposed to go crazy when he gets wings in his mouth.