GETTING DUKE UP TO SPEED ON HIS TRAINING

THE 2017 waterfowl hunting season was the first for my new Labrador, Duke. He performed exceedingly well. He has quite a tally on the scoreboard for his first innings. One thing that became apparent in the early outings was that I had to wait until the retrieve of the goose was complete until I shot the next bird that presented itself. This is because Duke was distracted and inclined to drop the initial bird and switch game.

To overcome this, I called my old mate Dr Duck and he advised the training system required to keep the dog focussed on completing the first retrieve, marking the fall of the second bird and then going for that bird on command.

I thought it would be timely to share that now while we all have time to instil it into our gun dogs before the next Goose Hunting season.

I start the session with some basic heeling and then a single retrieve just to loosen up, and get Duke under control.

I then throw a dummy as far as I can in front. Send Duke on the retrieve and as he returns with the dummy I throw another dummy behind me to the six o’clock position. At first, he tried to go past me, but I was able to catch him and say no. I demanded that he deliver the first dummy to me and then put him in the Stay position. I then went and retrieved the 6 o’clock dummy. The reason I picked up that dummy is I don’t want him to get excited by that dummy more than enough for him to mark it.

As we progressed, and he became more controllable, I would throw the second dummy while he was on the return into the four, three and two o’clock positions. As the dummies became closer to him he was more inclined to veer toward them but with a lot of grumbling I have dissuaded him to date.

Dr Duck suggests that in future, I stop him on the retrieve and with the dummy in his mouth, repeat the exercise by throwing multiple dummies from three o’clock and nine o’clock positions. Then when he becomes steady to these continue to throw dummies closer and closer while demanding he hold the initial bird and finally retrieve it. All the time I must collect the subsequent dummies thrown.

When this exercise is transferred to real field work, Duke will likely jump out of his skin to get the second goose following the first successful delivery of bird to hand. I have been able to do it once before the season ended. But alas it is a long wait to September. What a pity we don’t have a pigeon hunting season midyear.

Friday practice returns to NT Field and Game on January 12 from 4pm with the first competition 50T event on next Sunday, January 21 from 8am.

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