Thread: First Hunt - GSP/Lab

G'day Team. Bit of a write up here.

I've been training a 10 month old GSP/Lab called Flo to be a deer indicating dog. The training has been going really well for the most part. All the hunting specific stuff is set up well, but behaviorally she's been a bit hyperactive, especially when my wife is in charge. Stuff to continually work on but she's been getting bored and frustrated with the usual training routine and has shown impressive focus and control on scent work so I took her for her first hunt. We went to a spot where I knew it was highly unlikely we would come across other people/dogs and there are good deer numbers. I hunted her on the longline so that I could keep 100% control, recognising she's still young. It was heaving with rain when we started walking but the forecast was to clear early/mid morning.



The hunt went as well as it could have gone. Flo maintained good range 99% of the time, and when she did range out, she continually looked back to check up on me. I gave her a little bit of room to work. As soon as we got into the areas where there were deer, she started tracking. It was obvious because (as with scent training) she slowed right down and her body language was vary cautious. We tracked these deer for over an hour before bumping them from 10m away in dense bush. They ran into a nasty, lawyer-laden gut so we left them.
We relocated to a ridge where the bush was more open and the wind was coming uphill. Flo immediately got onto a direct wind scent. We stalked slowly into the breeze with Flo indicating constantly. After about half an hour she fully locked up. I took a photo of her and spent about two minutes looking before I spotted two yearlings between some trees 50m ahead. I positively identified the target, raised the rifle, and shot straight over top of her. The deer staggered for 20m then dropped. Flo didn't move a muscle. We sat down for 10 minutes then slowly approached. Flo was apprehensive when we got to the deer, but I let her take her time and eventually she went in for a lick, a tug at some fur, and shortly after she got a nice hock to chew on.

This was definitely one of the most rewarding hunts I've been on and it's great knowing Flo will only get better with age and continued training.