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.