Thread: Where to start

Once you choose a dog the starting point for all hunting dogs is the same. Basic obedience.

Come, stop, stay and heel are universal.

Do hard research on good lines of the breed you think you can work with. Get advice and help from someone who can demonstrate success with that breed for the task you have in mind. Make sure you have your obedience in place solidly before you take it hunting or on game and between the two of you it will all fall into place.

You'll learn more from your first dog than any other dog, so make the most of it, don;t try to conquer the world and have a blast!

Where you been Ruff?

Hanging around, but been flat out... a lot of wayward dogs out there... hahaha but getting through them....

Originally Posted by RCGSP

Once you choose a dog the starting point for all hunting dogs is the same. Basic obedience.

Come, stop, stay and heel are universal.

I couldn't agree more -good manners is what the dogs first needs and from there work on your ranging depending on your prey .Of course your dog will need to know what they are looking for so a dragged deer skin might be a good start for a deer dog with a good boy or a treat once found

Some disagree but personally i have found skin drags cause far more harm than good.

Interesting , why do they think that ? RCGSP may be able to expand on this given he runs a continental and knows how the Germans train -pretty sure thats a part of the process for wild 4 legged game

Well anyone can do things anyway they want really... and what brings them the result they want is the best method... but personally, most poeple I have seen using skin drags are training a dog to find scent and f&^%$# off... not really a desirable trait.... I've never seen a dog ingnore a new scent, so getting the fundamentals trained well , then introduced to the field and positive outcome on game result is a good training result.

Personally if i owned a dog that was interested in a treat when it had just found game I really wouldn't want to own it.

But then, everyone's mileage may vary.

Originally Posted by el borracho

Interesting , why do they think that ? RCGSP may be able to expand on this given he runs a continental and knows how the Germans train -pretty sure thats a part of the process for wild 4 legged game

No I agree with Ruff, dragging hides teaches bad habits.

A dragged hide is like a highway of scent for a dog. Way too easy. Talented dogs that have done a lot of hide drags will try and track entirely too fast and will be inaccurate and harder to control on the real thing. Good tracking is about the subtleties in the scent and there's no subtleties in a big hide drug along the dirt.

Well bred dogs don't need to be trained to track. They just get on and do it. The best training is putting them on the real thing.

I thought the thread was starting out ? You gotta start some where

Yep, but I haven't "got" yet what you think the dog is learning from the hide??? My experience is bad habits.... any hunting dog worth a feed will hunt scent, you can't teach that stuff, what you can do is expose them to it, under control, so they learn to do so in a useful manner.... but you no more teach a dog to smell than you teach it to pee... It's nice to be agreeing with Ryan for once

The place to start is behavior and control so that when you introduce it to game you have a say in how it deals with it... more accurately... THE say.

My initial thoughts were more for awakening a dog starting out to the scent you want him to hunt not as a long term plan forward -just like bird dogs , give em birds and excite them . I have no experience with deer dogs personally so will not try to school you past my initial thought

Originally Posted by el borracho

I thought the thread was starting out ? You gotta start some where

Of course...you start with a good dog.

From there I take them out after the fact if I've shot a deer that's left a bit of a track and let them work it.

Given the differing levels of hunters and ability with dogs and the understanding of training and expectation it would be impossible for the average hunter to say I have a good dog , that will only show in time and with basic training .Most live in the city and may well want to start training before hitting the bush 0-soooo what does one do -a deer skin may just be the ticket hung in a tree after a short drag .Blood is not always available and even if it is you may be fooled by a deer going back on its own trail and you not believing the dog -but thats much later than "starting out"one thinks

One would hope that the first deer you shoot doesn't disappear without a trace so you'd have a couple chances to let the dog practice on deer that you can find yourself first before you actually have to rely on the dog completely to find the deer.

Quin never got that chance though. First track he did was on a wounded sambar that a friend had shot and couldn't find. He didn't have any trouble finding it.