| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 97.1 | | BPOV09::PERRY | | Thu Dec 10 1987 18:08 | 43 |
|
O.K. folks, I guess I'll get my feet wet first !
Currently I have 9 dogs.
- 2 Labrador Retrievers
- 1 English Setter
- 6 English Springer Spaniels
My main interest is training gun/trial dogs for myself and others.
Although this tends to reduce my time bird hunting, I do manage
to get out a few times a year.
Two of my dogs are retired and are allowed out once a day to run
and find birds on their own. Jenny and Ben love to chase those
birds. This does not help in their training but they sure have lots
of fun.
Three of the Springers are 6 mo. old pups and haven't started
training yet, but they all show interest in birds and like to
run.
Annie is my English Setter pup. She is just over a year old. We
had some great shooting over her during the woodcock season, but
she has a lot to learn when it comes to grouse and pheasant. When
starting Annie, the most difficult part of her training was to
keep her in one county !!! She now stays within bell range
and it's exciting to watch her hunt.
Buck is my 8 mo. old Yellow Lab, he is just starting his training,
and he has really shown a good nose and lots of interest in birds.
He's going to be alot of fun to work with. I hope to enter Buck
in Derby stakes and hunting tests next spring.
Sprite is our 4yr old Springer. She is one heck of a gun dog. She
is steadied to flush and shot, provides nice finished retrieves,
and is a joy to hunt over. Sprite and Annie are really my two
hunting dogs. Sprite is used primarily for pheasant and Annie is
used for woodcock and grouse.
Suni is my 2 yr old Springer. She won her first open stake this
year in Pa. to qualify for the springer national open. She didn't
do as well as I would have liked at the nationals, but she shows
some promise for the future. She is really great on pheasant !!!!
I enjoy hunting on shooting preserves and I think that some of
them really offer some challenging hunts. I still think that
hunting woodcock and grouse is a little bit more testing for my
gunning than pheasant is in the wild or in shooting preserves !
pat.
|
| 97.2 | | BPOV09::JAMBERSON | | Thu Dec 10 1987 18:46 | 25 |
| Hi,
I currently own two Black Labs, Trap and Skeet.
Trapper is 8yrs old and from dubious breeding. His main claim to
fame is that he is a great pheasent dog. Although he is getting
on in years, I think he can still find birds with the best of them.
Skeet is 2 yrs old and from field trial stock. Both his dam
and sire are field champions. Skeet has run in many trials and
has done fairly well. He is also turning into a great hunting dog.
He hunted ducks and geese last year and this year. This year we
started him on pheasent and he produced his share of birds. I have
high hopes for his future in both the trials and during the hunting
season. When its not hunting season, me and "the boys " can be
found in the fields training.
Re: Hunting preserves
I think preserves can offer some fine shooting if there set up
correctly and the birds are raised properly. These areas offer
a great oppurtunity to introduce someone to the sport of hunting
without having to put up with alot of other hunters. They also provide
a good spot to get a young dog experience on alot of birds in a
relatively short amount of time.
Jeff
|
| 97.3 | Black Lab | CLUSTA::STORM | | Thu Dec 10 1987 19:18 | 47 |
| Hi,
I Currently own an 8 month female black Lab, Pepper. Her father
was a Canadian field trial champion. Her mother was a pet, but
came from hunting stock.
It took the first half of the pheasant season to get started good,
but we made up for it the 2nd half. Except in grassy areas, she
doesn't hunt quite as close as I would like, but not bad. All the
pheasants she put up (13) were within gun range, so I can't
complain.
This is the first real bird dog I've owned and this has been my
best hunting season in a long time. The best moments I
had this fall was watching her trailing crippled pheasants. On
one she crawled under 2 large brushpiles before she caught up with
the bird. What a great feeling that was!
She also loves to retrieve birds out of the water, and doesn't seem
to mind the cold. She retrieved a couple of ducks for me last
weekend.
I've been mostly pleased with how she did this year, especially
since my schedule didn't permit as much training as I think she
deserves. The two main faults I want to work on for next year are
retrieving to hand (she'll get the bird, but doesn't want to give
it to me); and being quite and calm in a duck blind. I expect getting
a year older will help with the later.
She is not steady to shot. That caused some problems, one of which
was almost a disaster. I went out to try to jump shoot a duck on
that very cold weekend several weeks ago. I was surprised to find
that much of the river was completely frozen over. We didn't find
any ducks, but Pepper put us a pheasant. This is a heavily hunted
area, and hadn't been stock in over a month. It caught me completely
by surprise and I missed. Pepper tried to follow it across the
river and broke through the ice in the very middle of the river.
I almost died when I saw what had happened. I started in after
her, but it was too deep. I shouted encouragement to her and she
kept trying to swim to me. Thank God the ice started breaking
away and she chipped a path out to me. I was pretty shaken up
after all this and we were both covered with ice. Pepper just
went right back to hunting and immediately put up another pheasant.
This one I nailed. A much happier ending than it could have been.
Mark,
|
| 97.4 | Willie | DECWET::HELSEL | | Thu Dec 10 1987 20:57 | 47 |
| What the heck, I must as well stick a note in here for Bear to have
a good time with.
I have a 2.5 year old Springer Spaniel, black and white, 46lbs.
He's actually pretty light for his size. He is very tall and fairly
long.
I got Willie on the opening day of hunting season in 1985. I saw
his parents both out hunting and they worked real well. In fact
the owner was hunting pheasant with a .410 guage. Bear still mentions
this whenever I talk about Willie.
Willie has been trained on Pheasant, but since I think the pheasant
hunting
in Mass is sub-par (I'm from PA where you can still get a lot of
shots at native pheasant), I have been hunting mostly Partridge,
Woodcock and Ducks with Willie.
Willie does real well with setting up shots at Partridge and we've
gotten a few woodcock last year. This year Willie gave me the best
Partridge fluch of my life because I watched the whole thing happen
and Willie flushed him out of the woods to the field I was standing
in. He gave me a real dirty look when I missed twice with my new
Beretta 20 gauge.
It really is a pleasure working Partridge with hie, though. I love
to watch him charge through the muck to put them up. It is real
team work. The proud look on his face when he fetches them up really
adds to my fun.
He is pretty good at ducks, as well. Once I got 4 down and he never
marked the last one, so I just threw a rock out at the duck. He
saw the splash near the duck and thought that it came from the duck.
He also had his first chance to fetch a goose on a mudflat this
year, but he couldn't figure out how to pick it up. He kept getting
a mouth full of feathers. While he was out there plucking it for
me, I kept yelling, "The neck, Willie, grab him by the neck!" He
finally got him down to the water and swam him over.
He is pretty mellow around the house until I pull out "his" 20 gauge
or work the action on my 870. If he hears any sounds from one of
our hunting guns, he loses his composure and runs around like a
madman until I put his hunting collar on. Hunting is really great
when you have a friend like this to share it with!
Brett.
|
| 97.5 | | LIONEL::SAISI | a | Fri Dec 11 1987 12:32 | 11 |
| Well I can't resist this one...
Freda is my first field bred bird dog. She is an English
Cocker Spaniel. Her ancestors were imported from Scotland,
Jordieland Kennels. She doesn't look like your average Cocker,
having alot less hair for one thing, and also she is solid
muscle. She looks more like a cross between a beagle and a
Cocker. At 5 months we have only done simple training, but
she thinks retrieving is great fun. She runs like crazy and
uses her nose alot. So I can't wait until she is old enough
to start serious training.
Linda
|
| 97.6 | Just what the Doktor ordered. | SHIVER::REMILLARDK | | Fri Dec 11 1987 16:18 | 42 |
|
Her name is Dokken, I call her Dok (pronounced Doc), she is a 2
year old Yellow lab. Stands quite tall with a large frame, very
muscular, at about 83 lbs. Started training at about 3 months of
age, gun and birds, started her out with .22 of course. This is
my first and only hunting dog. Training was surprisingly easy,
did it all myself, heel, etc...trained her on the whistle this year.
She made a very easy transition, took her 2 tries to teach her stop,
from a full retrieve, I was impressed. She listens really well
during training, in water or on land. She gets a little too rapped
up in the whole thing when hunting and wants to do her own thing.
It doesn't take her long to realize she's not doing what I want.
She marks really well, I can send her at any time even if I just
out for a walk and want to test her, she has a lot of confidence
in me. I kick myself sometimes because I lack confidence in her.
She's turned out to be much more than I expected, and is a very,
very aggresive hunter. This year was the first time I used steel
shot hunting ducks, had lots of cripples. She is worth her weight
in gold. She learned to dive to the bottom, one day she retrieved
4 ducks from the bottom, some in 2' of water and one was a 200 yard
retrieve. This bird ran on the water as soon as it hit, she
immediately got on the bird and followed the greenhead for a long
way, when she finally caught up to him he dove several times. Finally
she caught him in about 4' of water, her whole body stayed under
for about 10 seconds. Up she came with that greenie in her mouth,
I was estatic, 4 hunters on shore put there guns down and applauded.
It was great. My wife happened to be on this hunt, just to see
the dog work, I'm sure Dok was showing off....
Want to start her on upland birds, grouse being about the only choice
in Vermont. I have worked her some, but she's like a bull in a
china shop in the woods. Running around making all kinds of noise,
most birds flush too far. I think that this winter will be the
prime time to start her training, with the snow it should slow her
down a bit. We'll see, I'll probably be back here for advice.
As for trials I've only been to one, when she was a pup. She wasn't
entered, but the trial mood rubbed off on me and got me serious
about her training.
Kevin
|
| 97.7 | | BPOV09::PERRY | | Mon Dec 14 1987 15:46 | 15 |
|
I'm really impressed with .3 8 mo. old lab. Sounds like one super
pup ! And Jeff, I've seen your dogs, I think that your being just
a little modest !!!!!!!!!
.4 has really summed what this is all about " sharing your hunting
experience with a friend.
.5 I've only seen a few Cockers actually work, and I think they
can really hold their own in the field !
.6 sounds like you've done a pretty good job with Dok !
We still haven't heard from some of you pointing dog folks. I know
that Brittanys and Shorthairs are pretty popular gun dogs. Are there
any pointer or setter owners out there?
pat.
|
| 97.8 | One Pointer...One Flusher...so far!! | DELNI::G_FISHER | | Tue Dec 15 1987 14:01 | 34 |
| We have two hunting dogs; a German Shorthair Pointer (Benson)
and our new addition, an English Springer Spaniel (Knobby).
Benson will be 3 in January. I've put alot of blood, sweat and tears
into him. I knew little of hunting dogs when I got him and he's
given me the chance to learn alot about training...and the true
meaning of patience!!!!
My two most most memorable moments with him were:
His first water retrieve (we worked for well over a month...right
Pat?). He was not wild about water.
Last year about the middle of pheasant season he locked up on a
solid point. I moved in and flushed a nice cock bird...dropped him
with the first shot. I tried to send him on the retrieve but he
remained on point. I was getting a little frustrated with him and
as I moved back to send him on...up came the second bird...a fat
hen. I was so shook up I missed 3 times. I learned to trust him...
the hard way.
Our new addition is a four year old Springer. The owner's child
became allergic to the dog and we heard about him through a friend.
We decided to give it a go. He is out of Pat's line of Springers
(see .1). Sprite is his sister and Jenny is his mother (I think).
He has fit right in and we've fallen for him. He's led the good
life over the last year and I hope to get him in shape for next
year.
Since I do an awful lot of duck hunting my next dog (I hope my wife
dosen't see this ;-)) will probably be a lab.
Guy
|
| 97.9 | Similar scene | DECWET::HELSEL | | Tue Dec 15 1987 15:15 | 32 |
|
If I may side track for just a second, what Guy said about his dog
seeing a second bird reminds me of something I once saw.
I was at Addieville with a friend. Geoff was giving us a ride
around one Monday afternoon. We stopped Geoff's truck on the side
of the grass road and all three of us climbed out. We had one of
his pointers with us. (Don't remember which one.)
Geoff called for the dog to get out. The dog just looked at Geoff's
chest. Geoff asked again, the dog didn't move. This went on for
now less than a good 5 minutes. Geoff was getting very exasperated.
He tried pulling the dog from the truck and that didn't work.
His anger rising, he demanded the dog get out one more time. This
whole time, the dog did not move. Geoff turned around to us and
said, "I've never seen him do this".
He walked about 5 more steps away from the truck and in a flurry
of wings, a cockbird flew up in front of us, just off the road,
out of the high grass. We all king of stopped short and watched
the bird fly away. We turned around just as the dog lept from the
truck.
The greatest thing was how Geoff's look of disgust turned into a
proud beckon as realized what had just happened. The fact that
he couldn't even pull her out of the truck and off of point made
his day.
He said, That's the first time I ever saw a dog on point before it
even got out of the truck!"
Brett.
|
| 97.10 | Sam_I_am.... Benson's (.8) Buddy down the street | SHRBIZ::NELSOND | Get out the axe handle | Tue Dec 15 1987 15:42 | 42 |
|
re: .8 Hey Guy..... wake up, you're dreaming again :-)
THREE dogs !!!! chuckle, chuckle, :-) :-)
On Christmas eve, 1985, my wife brought Sam home tucked inside
her coat. Try that now. Sam is a 'big' German Shorthair (OK Guy and
Pat, I admit it !!). He ranges between 73 - 78 lbs and is all muscle.
A regular 'brush_pile_buster' as his breeder would say. We (Sam and I)
began our training with Pat when Sam was just under six months old.
Sam did well his first season. I, on the other hand, need to hire a gunner
for him. But after 7 years of not doing any upland hunting, it sure was
nice being back out in the field again. And that puppy was having the time
of his life. Actually seeing and/or shooting birds was just the frosting
on the cake.
In his second year of training, this past Spring, we suffered a
major set back when Sam decided he would really rather hunt on his own,
AND the thing he wanted to hunt climbed trees and was covered with quills
not feathers. Needless to say, Sam was also covered with quills. A couple
hundred bucks, and three porky's later, Sam's training on birds had been
temporarily delayed, and he's wearing an electronic shock collar. I swear,
this 'shorthair' is one the most thickheaded, stubborn, determined b!@#$%^
I've ever seen. We eventually curbed his interest in porkys (although he
had one super point on one this bird season).
This season was questionable in its rating of performance. He started
out doing everything wrong. Hunting for himself, running over birds,
putting birds up at 200 yards, etc, etc... But by the end of the season he
had calmed down and was really working well. The one bird I will probably
never forget, came while we were hunting in six inches of snow. Sam locked
up on point at this small bush. He held steady and let me kick, tromp, and
rummage all around. When I couldn't produce a flush, I gave Sam a little
tap on the ear and he started working the same mess I had just gone through.
Snorting and snuffing under the snow in the tall grass, he's got about two
thirds of his body dug in under the snow on a trail that took him about
fifteen feet from the bush, and this cock pheasant explodes out from under
the snow. For a change I managed to shoot the bird to reward a job well
done with a nice quick retrieve. Isn't it great the way we remember and
treasure the good times, and forget the not so good.
I'm looking forward to extending the season this year on some 'preserve'
birds. Plans for the off season are to work on control (still) and
hopefully to steady Sam to flush and shot. Get the video camera ready Guy,
Pat and I are going for another ride.
|
| 97.11 | sound familiar | SHIVER::RIVERSD | Home of fluorescent cows | Wed Dec 16 1987 11:19 | 18 |
| Speaking of stubborn, hard-headed dogs, meet Max my 2 year old
Chessie. I used him for the first time duck hunting this year.
After having casual conversation with each of my decoys, he
stood in 2 feet of water and had a few scotchs with the real
duck. He wasn't real thrilled with feathers either (I've since
cured him of that). I ended up doing my own retrieval that day.
On the same day, a flock of ducks came in and I went for my gun.
It would not budge from the tree that I had leaned it up against.
I looked down quickly an noticed that Max was sitting up and
leaning against the tree also. It took me a few seconds to move
120 lbs. of chesapeake bay retriever and get the gun. By that time
the ducks were gone. My friend just stood there and laughed.
So this is what it's going to be like, eh?
Mr. Nelson, may I please borrow your axe handle?
|
| 97.12 | Axe Handles don't always work | SHRBIZ::NELSOND | Get out the axe handle | Fri Dec 18 1987 16:19 | 13 |
|
re: .11
You may borrow the axe handle after the weekend, (I'm gonna
try to put Sam onto some perserve pheasants Sunday), and if
Mr Schneider is through with it. You see he also has 'shorthairs'
and knows just what 'axe handle dogs' are. I've heard 'chessies'
are as stubborn as the GSPs. The stories must be close to the truth.
dave
Oh, BTW, I've gone to fiberglass, kept splintering the ash handles
:-) :-) :-)
|
| 97.13 | First name pls. | VELVET::GATH | | Fri Dec 18 1987 17:44 | 6 |
| One question , does this schriered have a first name..
The reason I ask is I know a Russ Schrieder that lives here
in Merrimack N.H. who has 2 GSP. I was wondering could this be the
same person??
He is not a dec employee.
|
| 97.14 | A hunting we will go........ | MPGS::NEAL | | Sat Dec 19 1987 13:33 | 35 |
| 97.15 | ME AND MY FAMILY??? | MTBLUE::SCHNEIDER_JA | | Mon Dec 21 1987 01:53 | 46 |
| Hi, folks. I have "gone to the DOGs". I have five. 'With some
'tails' to tell. This is a case of gone over board! It all started
with the obsession I developed, it grew along with a Shorthair pup
by the name of Voelkker. My son bought him from a German Law student
for my birthday in 84. He had the Dam Bred in Germany on a trip
home. Well, I went the route of training him myself. 300 Hours,
in the yard,field,woods,marsh and lots of books,trials,clubs and
hours of advice (solicited and unsolicited)later, I found myself
with a life-long partner and friend, trained for Fur or Feather.
Along the way, I have picked up a few "Orphans". Ove, (needs
an Umlaut over the O) is a "show dog" bred shorthair(his grand-sire
was "best of show" at Westminister '74) that had spent his first
three years in a New York City apartment. Can you imagine doing
that to GSP? He was 87 lbs and DID NOT KNOW HOW TO RUN!!! Well,
he's down to 65 lbs. scared to death of birds, but goes wild on
snow-shoes and racoons. With the multiple one-foot-plus snowfalls
we had last year, wading belly-deep got the fat off an the muscle
on.
Beth is my hope for the history books. She is 18mos old. Wiped
out a whole herd of English pointers in the Maine Bird Dog club's
wild-bird Trials, as a Derby, the first time I'd ever seen her stay
on point after a shot. Three times, no less!!! A GERMAN SHORTHAIR
POINTER??? WON??? You should have seen the smile on my face. We'll
be in friendlier country,this next spring, with NAVHDA at their tests.
I covered my Wiemaraner in a note earlier (TO NEUTER OR NOT)
so I'll skip him. Just note that Krypto was superman's dog. But,
it'll take a better man to keep us out of the woods.
My latest addition is a Beagle bitch (Drives 'Em Bugs) pup out
of the local 'best rabbit dog'. I just got her "started" this morning
on a big snowshoe TWICE HER SIZE. It was a riot! We have a forty
acre puppy field and a 140 acre hunting course for more experienced
dogs and packs at the BEAGLE CLUB. No sense chasing a six month old
pup all over hell!
Well, I think that's enough for now. Just one more thing, I
strictly start my dogs on a OBEDIENCE program FIRST. Well,after
they learn "WHOA", I guess, almost first. I end-up spending several
bucks and weekends getting CD's. I just believe that, getting their
attention, is key to worthwhile training and the CD is a test of
how well. What do others do? What do you Think???
It's A THREE DOG NITE in Maine
Jack
|
| 97.16 | | BPOV09::PERRY | | Mon Dec 21 1987 20:18 | 26 |
|
Re: .15
Jack, Beth sounds like one super dog !!!!! What an accomplishment
for both of you ! You bet I'd be smiling too ! When did you start her
training ? At what age was Beth ?
In regards to what training to do first? It sounds like you've been
around dogs for a long time, so you are aware that everyone has
their own approach and that there's no simple answer ! There are
really many things that can be done such as socialization, maybe
some play retrieving, ......
The very first thing that I like to do is get pup's interest on
birds. I take several different approaches to accomplish this from
the time that pup is several weeks old to the time that we begin
formal training. Usually by the time that formal training begins,
nothing else interest pup more than birds. I like them really wired!
I also like to start teaching pup to come to a whistle at feeding
time and during walks in the woods. Also during these walks, pup
can start learning hand signals and a 2 beep whistle. I like this
approach in that pup never has any pressure put on him. All this
work is just getting him ready for more formal training.
pat.
|
| 97.17 | | SMURF::JUCH | | Fri Feb 05 1988 20:34 | 5 |
| Pat,
I like your easy approach to making a dog birdy.
Bill
|