After a few months of loafing and enjoying the lazy days of summer the dogs tend to lose some muscle and get pudgy like their owner. With the fall pheasant hunting season only 2 months away it is time for our daily runs to get back on track. With temperatures reaching into the high 90′s during the day we usually go for our run first thing in the morning when it is still cool out. The dogs are a little soft so it will take a couple weeks to get back in shape and running hard.
Yesterday we picked up this white and liver brittany dog named Buster. He is a nice sized 4-year-old male out of Dave Walkers brittany kennels. Buster’s sire is FC Ricoche-T or “Rico” and his dam is Sweet Dreams who is a Beans Blaze bred female by DC Chick’s Blaze’N Sawtooth Sam JH. We are excited to add Buster to our brittany kennels and look forward to shooting a lot of pheasants for him this fall at the pheasant hunting preserve.
This is Tony from Blueridge Brittany kennels in Texas. He was purchased this week and will be going to training camp in Nebraska with David Downing to get ready for some fall hunting. David will be competing with Tony in a few trials to get some puppy points if all goes well. We are looking forward to watching Tony’s progress in his bird dog training. You can see Tony’s (Blueridge’s Race-N-Win) complete pedigree here.
I was hoping for a puppy out of this same breeding, but the repeat breeding didn’t take. After talking with David he mentioned that this male brittany was available from last years litter. After thinking it over I decided to go ahead and get this good looking male brittany from the futurity nominated litter between Rob and Kelly.
This week we shot a pigeon over Mowgli and he did very well. I was using my single shot 20 gauge and I was about 20 feet out shooting away from the dog. Luckily, I actually hit the bird (I usually miss). Mowgli went right to the downed bird and brought it back in a round about manner. We will likely shoot a couple more birds for him before we go into getting him to hold his points. I think the goal with a young pup is to make sure they are excited about birds and have no sensitivity to gun fire.
Chris Colt of Cove Mountain Kennels is helping me get Annie steady to wing and shot. She caught a few birds and that set us back some. She believes she can catch any bird that she points and we are trying to break her of that. When she sets up on a point, she gets stimulation if she even lifts a leg. It is challenging to learn the body language and suttle cues.
Mowgli is the latest addition to our kennel. Mowgli was whelped on June 13th of 2008 and is a liver and white American Brittany. He was placed with us by some nice folks who found him to be more than they bargained for. He is a very high energy dog and has a little more size to him than the average brittany. He may be a little bigger than the brittany standard but after speaking with brittany expert Ben O Williams about hunting the open country I have been leaning towards the larger brittany males. Chasing chukar here in Utah requires a dog that can really cover some ground.
Mowgli was started immediately on bird introduction with a clipped wing pigeon and he showed excellent bird/prey drive. A few days later we fired the starter pistol over him while he was chasing a carded pigeon and he showed no signs of noise/gun sensitivity. We will try a 20 gauge shotgun fired at a distance and work up to a 12 gauge at closer ranges to be sure there is no problems with the gun. He loves to get out and cover ground and has won the hearts of my children. He handles well for my 6 and 8 year old daughters on walks to the park and is patient when they insist on combing his thick coat.
I sent in his AKC registration papers today and look forward to learning more about the pedigree and breeding which was from a small family kennel in Alpine, UT. Mowgli is at the perfect age to get serious about his hunting dog training so I am excited to have a second dog in my kennel while I am working on breaking Annie to be steady to wing and shot.
What do you do with your hunting dog when the hunting season ends? Join the club! I’m talking about clubs where you can compete in AKC hunt tests, field trials and fun hunts. I wasn’t able to be there Saturday but Annie passed her first leg of the AKC title “Junior Hunter”. My good friend Chris Colt handled Annie in her first AKC hunt test and she did great. It takes 4 passing runs before she obtains the official JH title behind her name. The spring hunt test was hosted by the German Shorthaired Pointer Club of Utah (GSPCU) of which I am one of the newest members.
Next month we will be attending a National Shoot To Retrieve Association (NSTRA) field trial to see how that particular competition is run. I just received my NSTRA membership packet and rule book in the mail today. I look forward to competing with Annie in these competitions and especially look forward to making some new friends and seeing some talented dogs. Joining a local hunting dog club is a great way to meet new people and learn how to train dogs. Club members are always willing to offer advice and even help you in training your hunting dog. Many clubs meet monthly and often host just for fun hunts or training days as well as formal gun dog competitions.
So get off the couch and join a local bird dog club or gun dog association and get your dog tuned up for next years hunting season. Here are a couple of hunting dog clubs to look into:
When learning to train a hunting dog your’e bound to make a few mistakes. Sometimes the mistakes can be easily fixed while others are costly and have a ripple effect. Jake was one of my first hunting dogs and we brought him home at 7 1/2 weeks old. He was very well socialized and had good bird and gun introduction early on. Jake had a great nose and was pointing birds solid at 6 months. When he was just about a year old I shot my first pheasant over him and things were going extremely well. I was proud of Jake and invited a few friends to come see his pointing dog skills.
Looking back it is easy for me to see that I made a mistake, but at the time I was baffled. It is a risky proposition to take a young dog hunting with 3-4 hunters and shoot 20 or so pheasants. I’m pretty sure he was not shot or peppered but I think there were just too many guns going off each time a bird was flushed. He looked great and held his points well for the first bird or two and then he started bumping birds. By the end of the hunt he was blinking birds and cowering at every gunshot. At the time I thought he just had a bad day and was making young dog mistakes. But, it was a lot worse than that.
The next time I took him out alone and planted a couple of birds, he took one look at the shotgun and headed back to the ATV before a shot was even fired. He was still interested in birds and I tried a hundred ways to coax him through it, but he was just plain done hunting. We struggled with it for a while because he was our best behaved dog and the kids liked him a lot. But, I didn’t see the point in keeping him around knowing that he would be left in the kennel every time we went out hunting with the other dogs. Jake deserved better.
Now I know there are some real pros out there that could have pulled Jake through it. But, over a year or so of trying I had no success and I was ready to move on. I ended up contacting a shorthair rescue in Arizona that was able to find Jake a happy home with an active family. We were sad to see him go but we knew he would be better of as a beloved pet than the lone dog left in the kennel. I learned some important lessons while raising and training Jake those three years. Most importantly that you can’t get in hurry with dog training. If your dog is struggling or showing signs of noise sensitivity – slow down, back up a step or even start again from the beginning. It’s never good to take a young dog hunting with a big crowd. I think one gun is plenty for the first year or so of real hunting. I’d be curious to hear of others experiences with gun shy dogs.
This is a client dog making a pretty nice water retrieve at the pheasant hunting preserve today. The property has a river running through it and many times the birds flush across the river and sometimes when shot, drop in or on the other side of the river. Shorthairs are usually quite good at water retrieves but as quick as Sadie was to get across to the downed rooster, it took a little coaxing to get her to come back. The water was running pretty swift and very cold with the winter run-off. My Brittany dog Annie was the first one across the river but she didn’t mark the bird and had trouble locating and returned empty handed.
For the past 2 years I have been trying to make up my mind whether I prefer the Brittany or the German Shorthaired Pointer. When I was shopping I decided to buy both breeds and to train them and work with them side-by-side and see what differences I noticed along the way. First, I must say that I have enjoyed the experience immensely. In the end I knew I would have to make a hard decision because both dogs are highly qualified hunters and companions. I always intended to have a litter of pups down the road and felt like I only had the time, energy and resources to focus on one pointing breed at a time.
I have decided to stick with the Brittany dogs and currently have my german shorthair up for sale. Both are excellent pheasant hunting dogs and have been working at a pheasant preserve these past two seasons. One of the biggest things I have noticed is that the Brittanies seem to be more interested in people and human contact. As much as I tried to bond with my shorthair she just felt stand-offish and distant. Both dogs were raised in the kennel and the shorthair seems to suffer the most from this. If you can keep your dog in the house as a family companion, that is always the best situation for bonding and socializing.
I’m not proclaiming that Brittany dogs are better hunters, more friendly or even better looking. I just enjoy being around the Brittanies more. I hope to own a few other breeds througout my life and see if there are any real differences when you compare one breed to another. Largely, I think it is more about the individual dogs personality and traits that are inherited. Working as a hunting guide this year I have had the opportunity to hunt behind several nice breeds like Vizlas, Weimeraners, English Setters, Labs, English Pointers, French Brittanies, Chessies and in the end I am simply drawn to the American Brittany.
A few days ago I shot over Ace from about 50 yards out with my 12 gauge. He was intent on chasing a bird and did not flinch at all at the sound of the gun. For the last week or so I had been firing a blank gun when he was chasing birds. He seemed to be doing well and his bird drive was coming along nicely. He still has not yet pointed a bird, but I am sure this will come.
Today I took Ace out with my Brittany “Annie” to chase some pheasants on the pheasant preserve. I brought my gun along just in case the right opportunity came along. Annie found some birds feeding in an uncut grain field and she went on point. Ace slowed and started advancing to see what Annie was up to. A rooster flew up and both dogs gave chase. The situation was perfect and the dogs were about 50 feet away and I dropped the rooster with one shot. Annie beat Ace to the downed bird so I held Annie and threw it out for Ace and he retrieved it nicely. We jumped a few more birds but the dogs were too close so I didn’t shoot. We will try this again in a few days.
Abby has come a long way since I first took her chukar hunting at six-months old (her first hunt). Now, two years later and heading into her 3rd full hunting season she is showing real signs of greatness. This year Abby is getting a lot of birds by working with me as a hunting guide at a pheasant hunting preserve. She is holding her points well and is steady to shot about 60% if the time. She is learning to run down winged and wounded birds and is getting better at finding dead birds that she didn’t mark when multiple birds go down.
One thing that she does well is retrieving. Abby has a soft mouth and loves to bring birds back. She seems to know who shot the bird and often delivers the bird to the hunter who made the kill. Abby is quite agressive for a female and will try to steel a retrieve from another dog that beats her to the downed bird. We are working on this.
