When to start training hunting dog
The Puppy Stage With Brookstone Kennels Performance Gundogs - Hunting Dog Training
so when you're thinking about your puppy
there's there's several things that are
important and we're going to talk about
three or four of them today and one of
them where we want to start is bonding
and socializations and what do we mean
by that you want to build a relationship
with your dog and what it's just like
building a relationship with your wife
or your husband or your kids or anything
like that dogs are pack animals they
they live to have relationships when
they're out in the wild a wolf pack or
coyote anything like that they bond and
they build relationships within that
pack and that's exactly what you want to
do with your puppy you always want to
think in your mind I'm going to spend
the next 13 to 16 years with this dog
what kind of relationship do I want to
have with them so we start from day one
when the puppies are four to four and a
half weeks old and we wean them off
their mom and then we start right away
getting them bonded and socialized with
people and we let as many people handle
them as we can so that they begin to
associate human interaction with with
pleasure with making their life easy
those kinds of things and you want to
continue that on with your puppy for the
first six seven eight months spend a lot
of time with your dog bond with them do
do games we do a lot of hunt games we do
exploration walks those are all great
activities to build that bond and
socialize that dog with you as the as
the owner and the handler so it's
important that you do that you need to
set time aside everyday for that and the
end result of that is a happy dog that
wants to be with you that wants to go
out and work which then transitions into
your training very very well so it's
important that that you set time for
that rules and expectations that's the
next thing you need to think about with
your dog so you get your puppy home
they're 7 or 8 weeks old and there are
bundle energy and they're fun and you
want to hold them and you want to cuddle
them and all that's great but from day
one you need to be thinking in your mind
what's this dog gonna be like when it's
two years old it's now fully grown it's
gonna weigh 60 to 70 pounds they're
gonna be very strong and they're gonna
be very very fast so right from day one
you want to start thinking about what
that dog's behavior is gonna be when
it's two years old and set expectations
and rules with your puppy and what
we mean by that we don't want our dogs
jumping up on people we don't want our
dogs biting we don't want our dogs
chasing other dogs squirrels Birds all
those kinds of things those are rules
that from day one you want to set with
your dog those are not allowed and if
you'll be consistent with that what
you'll find is later on when you get
into your training you don't have to
worry about those things because you've
set the rules already in the dog's mind
as far as expectations goes if you've
put your money down for good genetics
your expectations should be this is
going to be a good working gun dog again
get yourself in the frame of mind that
we're going to do activities and we're
going to interact with the dog in such a
way that that transitions out into the
field whether you're a duck hunter
upland hunter or whatever it is you're
going to do with your gun dog set the
expectations up right from day one of
what the dog should do when it's with
you out in the field
so again expectations and rules go hand
in hand think about the good behaviors
you want out of your dog when it's older
and the behaviors that you don't want
and from day one allow the good
behaviors snuff out the bad behavior
straightaway so here we got one of our
puppies from our current diesel drew
litter and this is really his first time
out we're gonna introduce him to an
exploration walk so what we do with all
of our young pups is as soon as we can
we get them out and we start walking
them out into cover let them explore
what's in is all about how to use their
nose and you can see he's already
getting into that but that's not good
stuff and we'll do this straight through
for the first five or six or sometimes
even seven months we'll take them out
and just go on exploration walks and
what we do is they're off lead but
they're walking along with us and what
I'm doing is just letting them use their
nose if they want to go in and explore a
little piece of cover as we're walking
along I'll let them do it because what
we're doing is teaching them that if
they get their nose now and they can
learn all about scent and how to work
cover but right away I'll find a nice
little piece of cover tall grass
something like this and it'll bring my
pup up to it and what we do is play
what we call a little hunt game I'm just
going to get his attention
and you can use a tennis ball a little
piece of food anything you can toss out
that's going to encourage him to get his
nose down into that cover and use it to
find it in this case because they're a
little young and they don't see all that
well yet they're he's finding something
already in that grass and he's learning
how to root down in there and get
underneath of that cover and find
whatever it is he's smelling which is
exactly what we want this is great this
is actually a really good day to do this
because it's it's a little bit misty
it's sprinkling a little bit so we've
got some moisture on the ground that
moisture is holding scent so you have
good scenting days and bad scenting days
this happens to be one where we've got a
little bit of good luck on our side
today and the ground is just a little
bit wet so it's holding that scent what
I've done is I've just tossed in a
couple kibbles of food right around in
there so I'm encouraging him to just get
his nose down and get that
Aries getting down to it that's exactly
what I'm looking for
that's wonderful I'm teaching them that
if they get down underneath that cover
they're gonna find something this is
what happens when birds are wounded they
look for cover to get themselves hidden
down deep
I've seen it ducks get in flooded corn
and they'll actually dive and get down
underneath the corn to hide themselves
you've got to have a dog that's willing
and able to get down underneath of this
to find that bird otherwise you'll never
find the bird good bad good lad and at
this point I'm going to introduce my
hunt command he has no clue what it is
but we're gonna go ahead and start this
command in a in in his mind over time
he'll begin to associate this command
with get your nose down in hunt and for
us in our program the command is lost so
I'm just gonna start telling him lost
lost lost lost lost some of kurzon Gibbs
knows now good boy good lost lost lost
lost lost and I'm just going to do this
over time he will have heard this
command and he'll associate that look at
that that's beautiful getting right up
underneath that cover exactly what we
want good boy he'll associate when he
hears loss that means get your nose down
and hold an area get your nose down
until you find something this is how you
begin to teach this and we do it right
from day one
lost lost lost the boy good boy
lost lost really happy with that you can
see the drive you can see he's happy so
I'm studying this puppies body language
this whole time what I'm trying to do is
understand what he's telling me and what
he's telling me is he's happy with this
game which is what we want we want happy
dogs energetic dogs full of life we're
not going to put any pressure
sure or anything on especially at this
stage they don't know anything we want
everything to be fun and that's exactly
what's going on here you see his little
tails going here he's having a lot of
fun with this game this is what we want
beautiful
good boy good boy
that was a good little exercise right
there so now we're just gonna now we're
just going to praise him a little bit
good boy that was a lot of fun
