Thread: What to breed to

Thats exactly my point of also observing the trainer not just the animal -the animal may appear to have bad habbits possibly due to poor training right down to purposely blinking birds.

Expand on the rough cover observations please!

Originally Posted by el borracho

Thats exactly my point of also observing the trainer not just the animal -the animal may appear to have bad habbits possibly due to poor training right down to purposely blinking birds.

Expand on the rough cover observations please!

A dog purposely blinking birds...immmmmmm among other things, that can be a lack of experience...many gundogs are gundogs for the duration of the season or Opening Week or maybe even Closing Week...for the rest of the time they are homedogs......there is the neat saying "its legs that get birds not guns" and I think that can be applied to dogs as well...i.e I am adamant in my theory that it is exposure from an early age of puppies in their hunting environment that teaches them so so much...stuff we cannot teach them. I was told that under no circumstances to let my dogs go after fur...what a load of bullocks...I will let the youngster chase the hare...yes, I will...he will do it only once and when he returns to you, falls to the ground in a aphyxiated mass...he's learnt a valuable lesson, next time he will be alot more sensible about heeding the taunts of the hare!!
Every breed has different style, different pace, different wind treatment, different work distance and so on...and every dog within evey breed has his own little ways as well so it is by observation that you learn these things of your dog. You have those who are meticulous in their ground cover, as in covering what seems like every inch of ground; they will seek likely looking places that may well be out of the quartering line, so to speak. You have those that will go to the places that you have shot birds, sometimes even a number of years ago, just to check it out. You have those who require a coulé or roading in because they will point at some distance...the list goes on...each to their own and that is what makes them so exciting to hunt over. None of these subleties makes them good or bad in their work methods...they will secure the bird for you and there will be a retrieve as their reward for their due diligence...

Edited to add: we too all hunt over our dogs differently as well...but one thing I have noticed with some people is their own walking speed...they seem to be in such a rush...you are not being fair to the dog if you are in some walking race...give the dog the chance to suss out the birds...the pheasant can hear all this clatter and he is gone...not fair to the dog...