pigeons Aug 31

Mike's farm
knee high grass
14 C
dry sunny
decent wind ~20 km/h

As last time I planted 2 pigeons in my DYI cages
After about 15 min I brought Liza on CC from downwind, crosswind as usual.
#1 she pointed nicely and stood 20-30 sec, when she moved I yanked the string releasing the bird.
She chased.
We moved on to #2. She wasn't sure where the scent was coming on first, but then she locked again good distance away may be 8 m. She was standing there, but another pigeon I was holding started flapping and distracted her, so I released the bird in the cage. She chased. I shot a blank.
All is well.

She's pointing nicely and holds longer. I will try to get a pigeon I can shoot for her and shoot it  in the near future if she does everything right. She needs to connect the dots.

In the end I let all three dogs run around and planted the last bird rocked to sleep in the grass.
I was thinking may be Ivy or Luna will find it, but in the end I put them in a sit and walked with Luna (off leash) to the bird. She again was a bit confused about the location (the air must've been swirling) then she locked on point. I walked in and kicked the bird up, so she let me walk in. She chased and so did Luna. Amazingly Ivy remained sited, she only whined watching the bird fly. At 7 years old she remembers steady to flush training I did with her for UT when she was 2. Some training really sticks if done rights, I guess :) BTW it was done using Maurice Lindley method (variation of West-Gibbons method).

pigeon training Aug 27

9:30 am
Mike's farm
knee high wet (dew) grass
light breeze

Much better scenting conditions today.
I planted two pigeons under my DIY cages and put good size stone on top of each to hold them down.
I took all dogs for a run in another field, letting bird's scent dissipate for 25 min or so.
Took Liza on CC to the birds, leaving the other two in the car (screaming murder).

#1. Liza pointed, can't recall may be from 10-15', after few sec she moved, I pulled the string flipping the cage and releasing the bird, Liza chased, I fired blank. All is well. When Liza came back I let fly another bird (to show her there could be more than one bird in one place), she chased that one too and again when she came back I let another one fly.

#2. She pointed from at least 10m. Very nice, what a difference wet grass makes!!!
While I was thinking what to do - the string was on the ground in front of Liza and I didn't want to move and break her concentration... She broke and I let another pigeon fly (I was holding it in my hand). She chased that one, I fired blank. When she came back, I let the one in the cage fly.

All in all very good training session and good progress from Liza.

I planted the last pigeon (rocked to sleep) for Ivy and Luna, but they missed it and it flew away, I guess it was awake by then.

retrieving

Couple days ago I tied up all 3 dogs on a soccer field and gave each one couple retrieves in turn, while the others watched. Liza did really well with 20-30 yards.

Today I repeated the drill, parked the car on empty parking lot, kept 2 dogs in the car and gave the third one couple retrieves.

Liza is also doing pretty well with 'staying'. I sit all dogs and walk away. Liza is managing short stays.

Liza second time on pigeons - point

5 pm
Mike's farm
dry grass
19 C
sunny
light breeze

I made 2 small cages from rabbit wire, tied some string to them.
I knew they'd need some weight on top of them to prevent pigeons from flipping, so I put some 2" sticks on them, but I lost 2 pigeons in the process anyways. It's hard to improvise, remote controlled launchers are so much easier....

Bird #1. Liza didn't point on scent, but pulled in until she was staring at the bird, then she sight pointed.  I don't think she had good air scent on this one. I flushed it and let her chase, fired my blank too.

#2. She pointed this one nicely from about 15', when I started walking past her, she held for a few sec and then broke, so I had to slow her with the CC, kicked the bird up, then let Liza chase.
Good one, it was her first real point

#3. She scented something, wasn't sure, relocated (I would have launched the bird at this point if I could), finally pointed from about 4' away. I had to hold with CC a bit, Liza almost managed to grab the tail, when the bird was in the air, I wish I had a photo.

Anyhow, this is progress and pretty fast at that. I'll have to rethink the cages...

pups are 5 months old

Congrats to all the pups! Happy mini-birthday, belated, it was on the 21-st

If I didn't mention it yet, I vaccinated Liza against rabies (well, vet did - legal thing) and chiped her 2-3 weeks ago.

She's doing well, sweet little girl. Most of the teeth replaced with permanent ones.

Liza's firs pigeons

8 pm
Mike's farm
25 C
no wind
dry grass

I got lucky and was given some homers under condition they will not be hurt.

I released 3-4 birds in front of Liza just to get her excited and let her chase them.
She's definitely ready, she really wants the birds. She gave chase to the edge of the field - 100-150 m.

After that I gave her 2-3 birds rocked to sleep in the grass. She found them and tried to grab them, so I had to hold her with a checkcord and kick the birds up with my foot. After that I let her chase.
I don't have my launchers anymore, so I'll have to either use cages with a rope or borrow launchers from someone. She didn't point.

I gave one bird each to Luna and Ivy. Ivy pointed nicely, Luna tried to take the bird out after brief point. They know it's a game and don't like to play it. They just want to grab the pigeons.

In the end I let go one more bird and when all 3 dogs were chasing it and were nearly 100 y away I fired my blank gun, Liza didn't blink, Luna started looking for the dead bird :)

sportdog sd 425 e-c and GPS tracking collar on sale at cabelas.ca

...

stop to flush

Here's a good way to train stop to flush if you're ambitious enough to attempt it (the vast majority of hunters in NA don't bother)

https://www.gundogtrainingforum.co.uk/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=24485&start=10#p277152

The last two HPR's I trained were "Rosie" the vizsla and "Libby" the Brittany . I trained steadiness to flush with them first by insisting on a definite stop/sit every time they flushed a bird (or ground game) no matter whether I had commanded the flush or whether they had "bumped" the game. Both dogs had several months of finding birds and stopping to them during which no shot was fired.

I trained the sit/stop to shot as a completely separate exercise before adding a shot ( a party popper or a starting pistol) after a flush. That meant the pups had been given two commands to sit whenever a bird was flushed.

Then I did some picking up with them but kept them on a lead to begin with. Picking up means dogs see numerous birds fall so as they fell I made the pup sit going so far as to deliberately walk about with the pup during drives to ensure the pup would "sit to fall." That meant that every time my pup flushed a bird that was fired at and brought down it received 3 commands to sit, each one backing up the previous command. I didn't use voice, hand signal or whistle , the 3 "situational" commands were commands in their own right.....BUT a vocal or signal or whistle command could be used in case of dire emergency ! 

Only after all that did I take those dogs to be shot over for the first time as I knew that if they had run-in to flush or to shot or to fall of game I was not nearly fit enough to catch them in the act ! I took Rosie to a friends farm and a few pheasants were shot from over points and she was completely steady. 

Libby was a "hotter" dog than Rosie so I took her to be shot over twice paying out more than £100 for this. At one of those days run by a HPR club the guns fired at every bird that took to wing. Birds fell like confetti near Libby a couple of times and yet she stuck to her training and remained rock steady. Then I took her to a field trial and ran her. She was rock steady in the trial too.

Libby's new owner has 3 brittanies inclusive of Libby. He says the one thing he can't get used to with her is the fact that she does not run - in ! 

It is possible to train an HPR to field trial standards without ever shooting over it yourself but I would be the first to say that it is better to shoot over your own dog if you can. When all those birds fell around Libby I was not too pleased about it ! Things could have gone badly wrong.

e-collar intro

I put the new ecollar on Liza when we go out, but don't turn it on yet.
She needs to get used to it and NEVER associate the collar and the nicks, we don't want to create 'collar wise' dog.

Here's decent video on the intro.
I would only use one command at first and I like HERE.
Also, adding distance and distractions is a very gradual process, it's not done all in one session, as they show and they're not clear about it.

https://youtu.be/WAvn4FKx2GQ

new e-collar

I did some (a lot) of research and ordered Sportdog SD 1225 (need third collar)

3/4 mile range, low/med/high level on the collar, 8 levels of stim on the remote
both the remote and the collar are waterproof
quick charge - 2 hours
I only use continuous stim, never nicks and I don't have a use for tone and vibrate, but the collar has them.
Expandable to 3 dogs/collars, in which case you can only use one type of stim per dog - exactly what I need, i.e. no tone/vibrate.

I used one dog Dogrta and now have the same 2 dog Dogtra, which I am reasonalby happy with, but Sportdog is chepear and easily extendable (I had to sell one dog Dogtra and buy 2 dog unit).

The remote seems to be nice.

I ordered it from Amazon in Canada for 299 + tax.

Most of the reviews are good, although SD is made in China (Dogtra in S Korea, but I had to repair the one dog unit). Some complaints, looks like mostly from some years ago, hopefully they fixed those issues.

It's better to have 2 systems, if I lose or break one of them, at least I have the other.

I'll report on the collar when I get it.

dog food

I found puppy food I like (well Liza does :) )
It's Royal Canin Medium Puppy (digestive health), large bag (30 lbs?) something like $71 before tax.

It looks and tastes (according to my wife ;) ) and has the same ingredients as much more expensive RC food called Gastro available only through veterinarians.

It's 30/18 (prot/fat)

https://www.royalcanin.com/products/royal-canin-size-health-nutrition-medium-puppy-dry-dog-food/3003

skunk

Luna found a skunk today, Ivy joined, thankfully I caught Liza in time.
I spent most of the morning washing Luna and Ivy with H peroxide, dish soap and soda mixture, then
baby shampoo, then conditioner, then repeat again.
They are clean enough to be in the house now. Oh the joys of having fur crazy dogs...
This is our first skunking, so hope it won't be repeated for many years, OTOH if skunks moved to the area... they're will be more, the only hope is that the dogs will stay away... we'll see.

Liza is developing nicely. She's very promising in her hunting attributes and she's totally adorable.
All of her front teeth are gone, canines are next.

I will introduce her to e-collar in August, so she's ready to go hunting wearing it in mid September.

She finds her own rabbits, gives chase with voice/tongue (laut as they say in Germany).