I had a fun weekend grouse hunting and watching the development of Remington, a 12 month old Brittany I have been training. To date we have focused on birds in the training field (pigeons, bobwhite quail, and chukars). This weekend we went out and hunted wild blue grouse (dusky grouse). Remington is a dog that I had to work with very carefully on noise sensitivity issues. I could tell from the outset that he was very sensitive to loud noises, so I took it very carefully.  On the plus side he was very keen on birds, so I was able to use his interest in birds to overcome his aversion to loud noises, and have eventually been able to work up to the shotgun.

This weekend was his first wild bird hunt, and his first hunt in tall dense cover where he couldn’t see me. Remington made a lot of progress this weekend; I saw him go from a dog, crazy with excitement running wild through the forest and getting himself lost, to a dog that stayed within range and was actively hunting with me looking for birds.

I used the Garmin GPS collar on the dog and was able to see exactly what he was doing on the first hunt.  This was really interesting. We started out working through an upper elevation aspen/Doug fir transition area that had been selectively logged. Remington started out wild with excitement. I was able to call him back to me several times for the first ¼ mile before he blew out of the area in a frenzy. I watched what he was doing on the GPS unit. He went part way back to the truck then ran back and forth perpendicular to our direction of travel, ranging 500 – 600 yards back and forth. Based on how fast he was running and the fact that he was just running back and forth in practically a straight line it didn’t seem like he was hunting, more like he was in a brain spastic frenzy and then got lost. After ~20 minutes he found the truck and sat under it waiting for me.  Thanks to the Garmin, I didn’t have to worry about where he was I just monitored what he was doing, then went to him.

I put him in up in the dog box in the truck and went hunting for a couple of hours with another dog. When I got back, he seemed anxious to go again, but had lost the crazed look in his eyes. We went out and he was like a whole new dog. It was as if he had sat in the kennel and thought about what he was going to do next time he got a chance.  He stayed within a reasonable range for the thickness of the cover and checked back often, he responded to my commands, and seemed to be hunting with me.  Best of all, when I did have a chance to shoot a grouse, he was right there wanting in on the action. My other dog, a lab, located and flushed the grouse, but Remington was quickly there at the shot looking for the downed bird he has come to expect at the sound of a gunshot.

The next day the lessons seemed to have stuck. From the outset, Remington was out looking for birds, yet he stayed within range, followed my directions and checked in often. Unfortunately after a hard day of grouse hunting we didn’t find any birds. It is looking like a tough blue grouse season this year. Nevertheless, it was exciting to see this young Brittany developing into a good field dog and asset to the hunting team. He has a ways to go, but this was a great start and it was fun to watch his progress.
 

Recently, I was asked by a new pointer puppy owner what he should be working on with his new puppy. My answer may have been a bit of a surprise. I think the most important thing he could do with the puppy is to properly socialize it. I’ll point out here that my focus on gun dogs is in developing well mannered hunting companions. There are two critical phases of canine development. The first is between 4 and 6 weeks old, and the second is between 6 and 12 weeks. During this time it is critical to understand these phases and treat the puppy accordingly.

The first phase is the pack socialization phase. During this period, the puppies begin to venture around and out of the litter box more, their teeth emerge, they start on semi-solid food, and are weaned. During this period, the dam spends less time with the pups and as a consequence, they begin to focus on each other. It is during this period that dogs learn how to relate to other dogs. They begin to establish a hierarchy, and learn proper canine social behavior and communication. Puppies taken from their mother or littermates before 6 weeks often have serious behavior problems as they mature.

The second phase is the human socialization phase. During this phase, the puppy’s focus should be on people and the human environment. Most gun dog puppies should be taken between seven and eight weeks of age. It is critical that the breeder begins the human socialization with the puppies during this stage. The new owner should continue this work. If there is ever a time a dog should not be stuck in kennel in isolation, now is it. This is where the dog’s connection with humans is largely established. We do everything we can to develop hunting companions that are team players and a pleasure to be around.

During this period you should purposely focus on eye contact and facial expressions. Pups are very focused on the face; spend two minutes with a puppy and you will see this. This is where you begin to establish a strong partnership with your dog. You can also begin to work on come, sit and heel with your new puppy, but by far, the most important thing you can do is socialize the puppy. Spend time with the dog, get him into new surroundings and let him experience new situations. Don’t put too much pressure on him, but get him out and about. Kids are excellent at socializing puppies; they fondle, chase, and love them up. Neither seem to be able to get enough, the kids or the puppies.

 

To some, this is intuitive, to others it may be novel. Work the wind with your dog to improve your success in the field. The two reasons we use dogs to hunt are, their sense of smell, and their social nature (they hunt in a pack). The sense of smell in a dog is the first sense they develop. Before they hear, see, or are even aware of others in the litter, they can smell. In fact, dogs smell somewhere on the order of one-thousand times better than humans (220,000,000 olfactory receptors), and something like 14% of their brain is devoted to their sense of smell. (I don’t know how this compares to humans, but there’s got to be a huge difference.)

I was excited to see my 18 month old puppy running way out and working the wind back to me while hunting chukars on the downwind side of the mountain. My older, more experienced dog did this as a matter of routine. The first time someone told me that their dog would range out and purposely hunt into the wind back into them I was amazed and thought it was just a fluke.  Now it doesn’t surprise me, I expect it.

One of my favorite experiences that I had happen several times was when hunting in brome grass CRP fields, I had a dog tracking pheasants running with the wind. The dog, a VDD wirehair pointer, would stop, lift her head up, and run way out and around and work back on the pheasant, trapping in between us. Truly awesome, if you ask me. That is why I love hunting with dogs.