Anyone use these and/or can recommend where to get them from?
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Anyone use these and/or can recommend where to get them from?
Of absolutely no use whatsoever.....
Agreed.
What are you after?
Deer and duck? Would have thought it a great way to train dogs nose? Hiding scent laced decoy
Buy a throw dummy ,once they have mastered that , I then introduce wings to the dummy tie them on , they get the scent from them . Don't use a decoy as is too hard to carry and will prob promote a hard mouth . Your mates won't be impressed when your dog retrieves the decoy spread either. Frozen whole pigeon works for scenting ,pointing etc but not to early. A piece of deer skin off the rump is what I use as well
Your dog doesn;t need to "learn to use it's nose" though it will get better at deciphering what it tells him as time goes on... that part of hunting we have almost no part in except for allowing them access to it. Your job as the trainer is to train the dog to use those natural abilities for you and with you.
All of my early training with dogs is just my own scent recognition... is bloody handy later on... brick has found a dropped cellphone of mine, a radio telephone on a pheasant shoot... lose it and he finds it... they will never not recognise game scent once they've hunted and just don;t need to be taught that.
A SAR trainer I worked with down south once had her dog find her a bobby pin she had dropped in a huge paddock while setting up a search!!! Took us a whiel to figure out what he was indicating on, it was that small. So cool. :cool:
Saying you want to train your dogs to use it's nose is like saying you want to train your kid to use it's eyes. It doesn't work that way.
I believe it is actually counter productive and a lot of people end up handicapping their dogs by overdoing things.
If you think about pigeons, they stink relative to real wild game birds. They are much easier for a dog to wind. With pointing breeds in particular this is a problem because the dog has much more scent up it's nose before establishing point which will lead them to wanting to get far too close to wild birds before pointing.
They are useful to get a young dog pointing staunchly and doing steadiness but overworking a dog on pigeons before working them on the real thing will make them too reliant on strong scent and make them bump birds. Once a dog has wild bird experience they learn the difference between the two so it's not as much of a problem but even still with all my dogs, after they have a few traps to get them staunch and steady they only see pigeons at trials and the odd time to brush up on their manners.
The same concept is true for dragging deer hides. Dragging a whole hide leaves a veritable highway of scent. Nowhere near an accurate representation of the real thing. Hide drags to dogs are easy and boring. I expect any pup with any talent whatsoever to be able to do them in their sleep. Over training on these tracks can make them lazy about tracking, or bore them into disinterest, or get them in the habit of running tracks too fast so they can't track accurately in the real world when the tracks are harder.
The same concepts apply to frozen/thawed birds, they stink. To illustrate the point take an experienced dog that you've done real wild bird work with and put out pigeons/frozen stuff out for them. They will wind the stuff at far greater distances than they do the real thing. It isn't realistic.
I do a very limited amount (once or twice at most) with a wing and/or a small patch of deer/rabbit hide on a string just to get the pups generally familiar with the basic concept and smells and make sure they aren't morons. Aside from that I think the best nose training is just getting them out there in the paddocks/bush. They will learn to use their noses just fine on their own without being flooded with scent.
If you want them I'm pretty sure I've got some wings/hides etc in the freezer you can have but I would caution you against over doing it.
Sorry should have said dummy, not decoy.
What you say about the dog becoming familiar with you own scent, that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. I want my dog to find deer and ducks not my bloody cellphone or hairpin. If introduce the target scents from an early age and have him focus on deer and ducks while training with a dummy as opposed to distractions like rabbit and possum. Seems logical to me that I'm channeling his focus on those species I want him to target!?!?
Thanks I can see the logic here.Quote:
Originally Posted by RCGSP
So I've trained my dog to follow a deer blood trail to a deer skin , time and time again . Are you saying I've wasted my time ? . I could have used an old sack and droplets of engine oil ?
Horses for courses. Does your dog point possums and rabbits when you are hunting deer, maybe that's what you want?
Yes he does point possums and rabbits that's why I want to reward him for pointing or scenting my target species in training . Am confused now . How else do you reward , if you hunt a area it's got 50 possums and 1 covey of quail say . You have trained to find dummy with quail wings is that going to encourage the dog to work the feather not the possums.?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dangerous Dan
You haven't wasted your time if you enjoyed the exercise.Quote:
Originally Posted by Munsey
I did this a bit with my dog before I get get her out on to the real thing. Mainly for something to do with her. Even laid one out, and went back the next day, after it had rained overnight. I was pretty impressed with that.
But, when we got out in the bush, and she got onto a real blood trail, that was impressive. The change in her body language when she first hit it, following the trail, losing it, backtracking and eventually finding the deer showed me that the skin drags hadn't really taught her anything, they were just something to do with her that was a bit different.
Since when did you have a dog Dan? What have you got? If you like I can get you some deer skin to train with. Pictures too please.
Friends dog, GSP. Been out with him a few times. Been looking for ways to focus him on deer rather than tree bears. Been wanting to get some deer scent and lace a dummy with it for him to locate & retrieve in parks etc.
No.Quote:
Originally Posted by Munsey
Breaking a dog of working possums is a separate issue
I'll be shot down In flames again no doubt .? But I used deer blood from the works. You have to mix it with sodium citrate from a chemists this stops it clotting . Used blood trails ,worked the dog along the trail . Would have my deer skin up wind from the end of the trail dog would air scent I'd get him to wow if he hadn't already. Worked for my dog . Don't use the skin as a drag as this will or may encourage the dog to track the deer scent . You do not want that . The dog must track blood and not deer scent . You only want you dog to air scent deer Scent. That's my take on it in brief .Quote:
Originally Posted by Dangerous Dan
Exactly...
Dangerous Dan. A little courtesy will go a long way to having this explained in a way you can understand because at the moment you don't. Making slights about cell phones, out of ignorance won't endear you to the people trying to help you. For the record I'm a professional trainer. i am trying to make you understand that simply recognising a scent from training will do nothing to shut down the scent of other animals. Prey drive in the field will over ride that. The cell phone dog I mentioned is regarded by many as among the best springers in this country on birds so obviously that early training was not detrimental to hunting. but it sounds like you believe that by "focusing" on one scent in training you are hoping the dog will ignore other scents in work. Simply, that's ridiculous. The dog will learn through experience what scent is and how to work it, if you want it to ignore some game in the early training a simple "leave it" command lets the dog know when unwanted game has been located. Young dogs get this very quickly. Unfortunately the majority of handlers are in the field with a dog too early before such preventative training has been done and the "leave it" command or a hiding for finding a possum serves only to confuse the dog, further erode the relationship with the handler and rarely if ever stops the dog seeking the game it was reprimanded for.
If you are talking about breaking the dog on possums then the above method using the "Leave it" command will always produce a result. If your training is not solid enough to have the dog respect that when it hears and you are looking for a magic solution to shortcut that then the answer is there isn;t one... and using scent in training will not make an ounce of difference to the field behavior.
At then end of the day I have a kennel full of dogs at the moment of which two are mine. they don;t hunt possums, they are very highly regarded and well known for their ability. None of them were of have been trained using scents. So bear in mind when trying to be a smert alec that None of the dogs in my kennel have your problem, but yours or the one you hunt with does.... Good luck.
Munsey I understand the point your are trying to make, but it assumes the dog wouldn;t have ever followed deer scent had you not this. I can categorically tell you, it would have and it probably didn;t even learn much faster as a result. I get your thought process though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Munsey
I am anti skin drags etc for most deer dogs... most dogs learn very bad habits from them and don;t learn much they wont learn while hunting under control if done right. The basic formula to train ANY gundog is to do your control work and then take it to the field. It has all the natural ability to scent and discriminate scent and tracking inherently built into it... It is only HOW it develops those abilities and our control give us the ability to channel what it learns.
Ruff this is all really good reading. I don't remember who it was that mentioned it in another thread about dogs, but if it was you I would be really interested about how to add a turn or change direction to a dog that is at distance or on a sendaway. Cheers in advanced if that is possible :)
In what context are ypu wanting the stop, turn or change of direction????Quote:
Originally Posted by Dougie
Like a sheep dog essentially. I have been encouraging behaviour like him slowing down and getting kind of into a stalk when he spots another dog or bird or whatever down at the beach. I'd like to control that....get him to slow down, turn to a different flank and sent away.
I do not tell him to do anything I am not confident he will react to 100% solid (if he is clearly ears turned off and running towards something, I won't call him to 'come' because I know he won't do it).
Are these the right ideas?
You're on the right track... the key isn;t encouraging what you want... it' s convincing him what you want is what he wants... now that might sound really hard, it's not, and I will elaborate if need be... but right there is the secret to really awesome dog training.... If you can create that, there is nothing you cannot achieve with a dog.
Apologies, thanks for the response, the reason I'm looking for the scent's is to apply some of the target species (deer) to the dummy. Have him locate it and reward him. Goal is have him associate the target scent with the reward and translate that into field work?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ruff
P.S one liners like "absolutely no use what-so-ever" seem just as ignorant imo ... maybe we both got off on wrong foot :)
Yup I do understand shaping and capturing, cheers Ruff :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by Ruff
Sorry if you thought they had use, which they don't, which made you believe that the product of my 35 years experience training gundogs has lead me to believe they are of no use whatsover is arrogant... I shouldn;t have to shape my answers based on your pre existing thought basis's... I'm a dog trainer not nostradfuckingdamous.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dangerous Dan
Oh yeah. the first sentence is a question I think... hate to sound arrogant but it wont work and if you want that explained read what I've already said. This rubbish people are sold on "Positive reinforcment" is a load of garbage. It's like the tax department collecting taxes by ignoring those who don;t pay and thanking those that do.... friggen lalala land.
NOTHING I said has to do with shaping or capturing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dougie
I would say that my missus responds to expensive little bottles of scent more than my dog would :)
Ah Ruff, gotcha. I just read how positive reinforcement doesn't fit in with your method of training. I can understand that your methods are producing effective dogs year after year, but I too beleive that the way I've trained my dogs has worked also. (Noting that my dogs have only ever been companion dogs) I am not about to be a hippee and bash your methods, don't worry :)
I thought what you had meant was that capturing the dog's movement then adding a cue to it. I've obviously misunderstood. I am still really interested in how to train a change in direction. From my personal research I have not found positive reinforcement techniques to teach things other than tricksreally, often most stuff isn't at a distance either which is the challenge that I am wanting to tackle and that's why I am seeking more information on different techniques.
Cheers.
PS I understand that this subject is very close to home as this is 'your thing' as such, I would not be offended if you'd rather brush me off now that you know my methods of training. It's been done before and it will be done again, each to their own I say and I will not bash my training 'bible' in anyone's face. I have seen the way that many positive reinforcemet advocates may also fall into the basket of hippee vegetarians! I can assure you I love my red steaks.
The best use for those training scents is to pour them in the fresh air A/C filter of your mate's trucks. Works really well with fox or doe in heat urineQuote:
Originally Posted by Pointer
Not at all. I like your receptivness... You might be jumping to conclusions a little bit... I will respond in a bit of depth for you later....Quote:
Originally Posted by Dougie
Thanks mate, I'm always keen to learn more!
i use scents on tennis balls...... for young pups to find, they soon learn to find them after they roll into the rubbish.
fresh tennis ball rubbed over a dead rabbit or pheasant, it only really shows me a pups level of drive over it's siblings, but is fun to watch.
i do buy into the german methods of bloodtracking/finding and reporting with aged tracks and it's something i wish to learn more about in the future.
i don;t believe the scent makes an ounce of difference Jason... they'll still find the tennis ball. I didn;t say dogs didn;t track. I said the way they learn is how we expose to them opportunity, we don;t have to make the exercise.... just expose them to hunting.Quote:
Originally Posted by kawhia
next litter i have i will get it for you on video, the scent helps, i'm looking for the instinct on game scent not tennis balls.
I'm explaining myself poorly....
no ya not.
Yeah i am....