First Shot Bird!

Today was Huge.

My friend Douglas invited me down to his farm today to work our dogs on some birds (he has a Spinone). I've been working with Winnie little by little on exposing her to gunfire, and we've also been doing some limited bird work. But it felt like the right time to start putting the pieces together, and so I decided to bring her in hopes of introducing a shotgun and a bird at the same time.

But two things bothered me: 1) Although I've done a little gun exposure, the leap to a full shotgun blast at a relatively close distance would be a significant one, and 2) Having done all my training to this point on my own, and having little hunting experience and even less gundog training experience going in, I was not confident that what we've done so far would translate to a real world (albeit staged) hunting environment in the company of an experienced hunter.

And so, with four chukar stinking up the car, I made the trip south to the farm and we formulated a plan: On the first two birds, I would hold Winnie on a short leash and let her watch Enzo as he did the hunting. Then we would give Winnie a shot. But after the first shot, if Winnie reacted negatively to the sound, we would of course revisit everything and recalibrate our goals for the day.



Enzo found the first bird quickly and Winnie and I got into position about twenty yards away. Douglas flushed the bird and took two shots to bring the chukar down. Winnie didn't flinch! Winnie watched excitedly as Enzo retrieve the downed bird and we repeated the exercise for the second bird. Same results, Winnie was not bothered by the shotgun. (Douglas and I were both shooting 16 gauges.)

Winnie plowed through her first bird and flushed and chased it - no shot. But for the next bird she was much more methodical in her search, and when she found the bird she held the point nicely until I could get there to flush it. I took the shot and downed the bird and Winnie was right there to go after it. She found it in some thick brambles and kind of lost interest in fetching it for me, so I grabbed it and threw it for her into some short grass. She ran after it and brought it right to my hand.

We sat on the porch and had a cold beer as we removed 490 burrs from our dogs and talked about the morning. And when Douglas complimented me on how well Winnie had done in the field, and how well behaved she was generally, I realized just how big this day was for us. We have a long way to go, but we're really enjoying the journey. And after today I feel like we're heading in the right direction.

Training with Beers (Part 2)

Sorry about the crappy video. I couldn't tell where it was pointing, and I guess I had it set up for her to pick the can up off the ground as in Part 1, but most of the time she was taking it out of my hand. Also, the scenic backdrop here is the garage. Because not everyone in the house thinks this is a really excellent way to spend time when some others would rather be going to sleep.

Okay, so here we needed to raise the criteria for her to get the click/reward. At first she picked up right where she left off - assumed pushing her nose onto the can would get the reward. Just as planned, she grew frustrated by the lack of treats and tried other behaviors like batting the can around the garage and trying to skip the behavior and sneak the treats herself.

Turns out her biggest aversion was, I think, was picking up the can with her mouth. So I put a huggie, or whatever you want to call them, on the can and she picked it up right away. Once she did that a few times, I removed it and she picked the can up!

So, two days in, I know we have a long way to go but I think she's doing great!

Training with Beers (Part 1)

I've decided to practice my clicker training and try to teach Winnie to fetch me a beer.

Hey, they're cheaper than birds! Plus, I'll be honest, I'm hardly ever mowing the lawn and sweating, wishing someone could run inside and grab me a cool, refreshing chukar.

A quick search on YouTube confirms that many dogs are taught this trick. Though I couldn't find any instructional advice. That's okay though, even though I'm very new to clicker training, I understand the basic principles. I think we can do it. (Disclaimer: I tried this years ago with my German Shorthaired Pointer. It didn't go well, and after consuming several of the retrieval subjects we both lost interest. But that was before I knew about clicker training!)

In Part 1 above you can see it really click (pardon the far too obvious pun) and when she realizes that touching the top of the can with her nose is the behavior that gets a click and reward, I can hardly reward her fast enough! Two sessions of about five minutes each got us to this point. Next I'll try and see if I can get her to pick up the can. Stay tuned!

Training with Birds (Part 2)

Saturday evening I returned to the field we used earlier that morning to see the neighbor who owns it. While passing the field I spotted one of the chukar in the field. So I went back home and got Winnie and brought her back. I thought it'd be a good opportunity to let her run around free without the check cord and try to find a bird without me knowing where it was. I also brought the .22 blank pistol along, in case I got the chance to flush a bird I wanted to try firing the pistol while she chased it.

Well she worked the entire 2-3 acres pretty thoroughly - though without any sort of structure or pattern to her search - and came up empty. She could have missed it, or maybe it returned to the treeline, who knows.

But as we walked back home I reflected on the day and what I learned. Here's what I came up with:

What I Know.

• When I returned to the field that evening and let her run free, I got the sense that she absolutely thought there were birds in there, and wanted to find them. BUT, what I noticed was that in this situation, our whistle recall is not nearly what I want it to be. So we need to work on that in more varied and more tempting environments to make sure we're working toward a reliable recall.
• Her nose seems to work. She picks up the scent and heads straight toward the bird. But she waits till she is very close to the bird before she points.
• She learns VERY quickly. This makes me nervous because I feel like she'll learn from any mistake I make before I realize I've made it. By holding the check cord on one bird when she chased, she stopped chasing the very next bird on her own!

What I Don't Know.

• I'm not sure if I want her to chase the bird or not. I may need that frenzied enthusiasm when it comes time to tie in the gunshot with the bird. On the other hand, down the road it'd be nice to keep her there in a Whoa until I send her to retrieve a shot bird. I am impeded not only by my lack of gundog training experience here, but by my limited actual hunting experience as well.
• I continue to be nervous about properly introducing gunfire, and think it's time to get some assistance. 
  

What's Next?

• I think it's clear that I got lazy with the recall, getting good results in the comfort of the yards and paddocks at our house. Much more work needs to be done here.
• Soon it will be time to build in a little structure to her bird searching. Not sure how to go about that but it will include whistle commands to change directions. That will come AFTER I make some progress on the whistle recall.
• I'll be looking for a trainer or preserve with lots of room where I can have a gunner shoot from a distance as she's chasing a flushed bird. If that goes well, we might be ready to shoot a bird over her and really start tying all of this together. But to me that all still seems a long way off.

In Other News

• My earlier post about using ShowSheen to get burrs out of her coat got further testing Saturday. It works GREAT! I do need to get a better comb, maybe a flea comb, to use to remove the burrs once I spray the area.

Training with Birds

Today we did some fun training with birds. I bought four chukar and brought them to a neighbor's field that has longer grass than ours. When we first arrived, morning fog was just lifting and I was lucky enough to capture this great image of Winnie in her 'work clothes.' (She wears the vest this time of year as she is deer-colored!)

The main purpose of today's training was to use the 'Whoa' work we've been doing to see if, once she found and pointed a bird, she could hold that point until I could walk around and get in front of her, then flush the bird myself.

This was the setup. I left Winnie in the car as I planted the first bird. I walked along the road on the left and then circled around and placed the bird so as we went through the field she wouldn't be picking up my track.

I had seen 'kick baskets' or 'step baskets' online before and decided to make one myself. This was made from a basket found at Home Depot's shelving department, and a simple bracket attached to the side with cable ties. Put the bird down, the basket over the bird, some grass on top of the basket and then if the dog runs right up on the bird, you don't watch fifteen bucks fly away before you get to train with it.

So I tried this with the first bird. Winnie got the scent of the bird and started working toward it, but then she saw the basket and just went right up to it. I gave her the Whoa command but she was literally already on top of the basket so there wasn't much point. I flushed the bird and she took off after it, thirty feet of check cord behind her. She got to the treeline and stopped, and I called her back. So, while the basket was a good theory on paper, I didn't like the results. I brought Winnie back to the car and decided to dizzy and plant two more birds in the grass without the basket.

So with three birds in the cage, I planted one, then about fifty yards away I planted the other. At this point, the fourth and last bird escaped. The escapee, combined with a less than productive first bird, put a little pressure on the thirty bucks of bird currently in the grass.

For all the overthinking and planning and preparation I do for something as simple as a Saturday morning training session, you'd think that I would charge the batteries in my camera. But, no. So on this next bird, when Winnie pointed and I gave her the Whoa command, she held the point long enough for me to curse my exhausted camera batteries and take out my cell phone to capture these very poor images.

I grabbed the end of the check cord this time and flushed the bird. She chased it for approximately 30.00 feet. (I credit my overplanning in this case for remembering to wear gloves when attempting this step!)

The point? Well, less than stylish, I admit. But I was very pleased with how long she was holding them. In fact, when she found and pointed the last bird we were about fifteen feet from the gravel drive as a pickup drove by. She maintained focus on the point until I walked around to get the bird between Winnie and I. (She was only about two feet away from the bird.)

I picked up the end of the check cord and flushed the bird. This time, Winnie took about three steps after it and stopped! Very impressive, productive and fun morning in the field.

This post is already too long, so I'm going to make some conclusions and lay out the next training steps in another entry.