Tip of the Month
 Brooke Van de Brake
Brooke has enjoyed training hunting dogs for people
in the Northwest for over thirty years. |
August - Try a Pheasant ReleaseIf you are taking your young dog pheasant hunting for its first time and you feel that you have done pretty good job of training it yourself by throwing it bumpers all summer and have its retrieving skills down pat you might want to consider going to a pheasant release sight to get some birds planted for your pup.
The reason for this is simple; In essence you have provided every retrieve the pup has had since it was a puppy. Lets say from the time your pup was four months old and it is now seven months old you threw it 6 bumpers a night, over a 3 month period that amounts to 600 retrieves it has had and has never had to go seek and find a bird on its own. So you go pheasant hunting and the terrain is tough and there aren’t many birds what do you suppose is going to happen. Your pup will look to you to throw something because you have provided him with all those retrieves early in his life.
Please do your pup a favor and don’t blame him or her for not being efficient at that venue, accept the responsibility yourself and either get your pup some training or quit throwing them so much to retrieve until they are self hunting better. Remember they can’t talk to you and say they don’t understand, and you should not degrade them by thinking they are no good. Give them a chance to be good. They are your best friend and if they learned other skills they will learn to get out front of you and self hunt.
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