Hey guys, some of you may have seen previous posts of my golden retriever, Archer, as I have shown you some of his training progression. I've been self training him at home, and on the field for the last 11 months. I have to give a shoutout to High on Kennels in Mesa Grande for giving me some guidance in collar conditioning and force fetching. I highly recommend them to anyone who wants their dog trained.
This is Archer's first season, and up until a few days ago, he's only been on dove hunts with me. Pretty simple; he sits next to me and when a bird goes down, he'll fetch it. He's great at it.... but I always wanted to know if he was able to point or flush.
Well I put him to the test. I took him to a spot that I knew had some decent numbers of quail, and he did not disappoint!
I have also found out through this process that he is not really going to point. But with simple training games like dragging dead birds through brush, and other training exercises like directional commands, I can basically send this dog out, run him left or right, and get him to "accidentally" bump the birds. Maybe he does know where they are, but from my point of view, it looks like he's just randomly running into them. Regardless, he bumped 2 coveys, both of them 20-40 birds deep, and it was game on!
I would've limited out, but I ran out of shells, and we lost a good number of birds in some really thick chaparral. Regardless, I'm super proud of my pup!
It is so fun hunting with a dog....
This is Archer's first season, and up until a few days ago, he's only been on dove hunts with me. Pretty simple; he sits next to me and when a bird goes down, he'll fetch it. He's great at it.... but I always wanted to know if he was able to point or flush.
Well I put him to the test. I took him to a spot that I knew had some decent numbers of quail, and he did not disappoint!
I have also found out through this process that he is not really going to point. But with simple training games like dragging dead birds through brush, and other training exercises like directional commands, I can basically send this dog out, run him left or right, and get him to "accidentally" bump the birds. Maybe he does know where they are, but from my point of view, it looks like he's just randomly running into them. Regardless, he bumped 2 coveys, both of them 20-40 birds deep, and it was game on!
I would've limited out, but I ran out of shells, and we lost a good number of birds in some really thick chaparral. Regardless, I'm super proud of my pup!
It is so fun hunting with a dog....
