Thread: Photos of your dog

Originally Posted by Nugget connaisseur

The dog is probably going to spend 80-95% of its time at home and the rest hunting

My preference is for smaller / medium dogs. Its easier to lift over fences, smaller so easier to fit in places and not take up as much room in the tent etc. Also i have a bitsa as the same reason, it was a rescue and in the hope would be lower chances of health problems.

+1 on this ..... i editted out the rest cos im certainly no expert on dog behaviour , pointers and such .
i have a whippet/terrier cross (probably staffy) weighing in at 17 or 18 kilos and the size of a small lab
she was a rescue dog and had some issues couldnt train her the same as i did the lab before her shes not food driven but play/positive attention driven but at the same time when shes home shes a couch potato , very low maintenance . i can lift her up when we are climbing out of guts or down into them she fits in my sleeping bag and doesnt take up much room in the vehicle.took about 3 years to get her where i wanted as a hunting dog and its taken another 2 to get her first deer (would have been sooner but for my slow reflexes and not reading her properly at the time)but hey cant rush these things.....bit like mainland cheese apparently

Originally Posted by Nugget connaisseur

I have no experience with Pointers but other high energy dogs.

Dogs like people are on a spectrum even within the breed. So liking other dogs and energy requirements will vary but most likely be high energy. Especially as a puppy/ adolescent

In saying that dogs can adjust to a particular lifestyle within reason. Mine went through a phase of destroying blankets and a few other items as I slacked on the training and exercise when she was just over a year. Upped the training and involvement and it went away.

My current dogs get ~1 hour exercise most days in the week and a good outing on the weekends. If not both days. She mostly just lays around inside during the day but is very keen to head out as soon as I get home.

Not only do they get a good walk they get mental stimulation. That's just as good if not better to tire them out. Tracking training. Teaching new tricks. Getting them thinking.

Hunting wise gun training is the most important to get right. Scared of a gunshot or even the sight of a gun is no good. Then teaching what behaviours you want during hunts. How far in front. To not break at the shot etc.
The deer dog blueprint is a fantastic video resource that I wished I had of used to train mine with. She's my first hunting dog. My only expectation to start with was to track / find downed game. No indication. She doesn't point but I can tell from her body language when she's onto something. So the intention was more post shot. But once she figured out the game I can tell from her behaviour when we are into an animal.
so far i have managed to recover a gun shy dog. Stop her from breaking after the shot. Now I'm working on her chasing game. She used to lock solid and not chase. But I undid it one day to get her to drive off a bunch of goats in the way. Alot easier to get it right at the start than to fix bad behaviours. But I'm learning far more fixing my mistakes that I can carry on to the next dog.

As long as you can put in time almost every day for exercise and training and they arnt just locked up all the time you should be alright. But expect 10mins a day and it to be locked up the rest of the time you will have a bad time. Put in alot of effort up front with training when a puppy and adolescent then you will have to do very little as it's older

+1 to spectrum comment. Lesson one from the Blueprint if you haven't seen it: Choose the quiet or reserved pup in the litter.

My boy is a GSP/Border Collie cross. Happy to lie about all day, doesn't "need" to be walked, does like to play fetch but needs a nap after 5 minutes. Laziest pet I know, on the flip side he will hunt all day. The only time he gets antsy is when I forget to let him in his kennel past his bed time.

Originally Posted by mimms2

Choker chain.

Its lower down the priority list. I have a prong collar. 10x better than a Choker chain.

Working on impulse control and excitement has been the bigger issue to stop breaking at the shot.

Its not pull me over its just requires active management rather than a natural walk around the block with no corrections. Not a big deal. But I will work on it eventually.

I dislike the name choker chain...but both my dogs wear theirs all the time...
no rotton smelly hair underneath as they breath (collar AND dog)...council tag goes in the end the clip goes onto.
re walking in front/pulling on lead
a quick firm jerk on lead...is all thats needed,most of the time....its a "oih Im the plurry boss,get ya hairy bum back here" sort of thing
switching directions is pretty good too,that one works even better for keeping at heel.
collar comes off and stays in wagon or at home when we go hunting.

mimms2 stop it..you are making sense and Im agreeing with you....

They stopped calling them choker chains a while ago. Check chains is the going term for the same thing these days.

You should only need to use one a few times while giving the dog the word you want to use for stop pulling ( "heal" etc...). You may sometimes need to move to a long rope after it learns to stop pulling on command, since the dog will (at first), think it can range further away from you once it gets out of lead range. So a few more times on a long rope with the check chain to re-enforce the heal or come here command and you shouldn't need to use one again.

I never run collars on my dogs but have a horse lead I feed back through the clip to make a loop if I have to go through an on leash or dangerous to the dog zone ( like close to a road etc..).

Originally Posted by mimms2

Based on...?
I'll admit that I'm old(er)-school, but I don't see any advantage.

Slow learning dog? They happen.
But if a student fails to learn, the teacher has failed to teach. And if he needs "active management" with a prong collar??

Noise exposure. Feeding time is good (for all kinds of training). I sit mine before food. Drop steel bowl on concrete floor, have someone else crash and bang, hell, pop a few shotgun rounds off. If he breaks the sit, put him back on it, then feed. Eventually he'll start to ignore the noise. (his goal is food, he should be focused on you for the release command, noise should be incidental)

Sorry badly worded.
I prefer a prong collar minor pressure corrections can be used, not the "check" correction. 10x easier to be consistent with and i have found dogs react to it better. I don't walk her with the prong collar, walks are down time and i rarely walk her on a leash. So haven't bothered to work on it yet.

"active management" is verbal, gentle leash corrections. Unlike my other dog she wont stay a heal for extended periods of time....she needs reminders and if left to her own devices eventually will want to go sniff and always reach the end of the lead and pull.
100% agree my dogs flaws are my failings as a trainer. Most are minor but the ones that bother me i work on them. Bad teaching, biggest thing i got wrong was INCONSISTENT RULES. Pretty hard for a dog is to figure out what you want when the rules are always changing.

She learns very fast when the rules don't change. Behaviors i expect the rules don't change.
I have already come a long way at the breaking of the shot. Tying her up so she cant interact with the game after breaking is what is working for her. I just need to get out more to proof it. Adding noise anticipation in is a good idea that i can do without being in the bush.
I have been doing impulse control, while they don't generalize very well its helped with her attention. Not running or anticipating at the throw of a ball, Not taking food even if i hand it right in front of her. I can leave chicken in the car for 20mins and come back and it still be there.

People were often surprised to hear I could leave my dinner on the chair while I went out of the room to get something, and none of my dogs would eat it. I also fed my dogs off my plate so they knew that's where the yummies came from. It was no problem for my Rotties which I raised from pups, but Rocky the huntaway which I got at 2, took a bit of teaching before I could leave yum yums around without him gobbling it.

Thor (black gwp) and Burl, passed away Nov 2019.

Two 6 month pups I breed. Cattle cross.
Still learning but hope to catch pigs and aid in deer hunting.

Ninth birthday today. These two have been dishing out the love to Mum and Dad during our unfortunate spell on the sidelines. Gotta love the Nanny Dog.

The new puppy learning what to do at teatime from the big dogs, and guess which one is the thousand miles an hr trouble making stirrer the rest of the time......

Sounds just like our new girl.
2 year old Bichon with zero training.
Opinion on everything, whether she’s asked or not.
Starting to come when called, I used to have to send my shepherd out to herd her back to me.

After being a duck dog for the past 8 years, finally got around to getting Rocco out and onto a deer.



Our latest edition Zoe. She is coming along nicely and has firmly cemented her place in the pack.

Go Rocco the deer dog
Zoe is 1 cute soggy doggie