Fran Ardley on training to be steady
Fran Ardley looks at how to deal with temptation as you train your dog to be steady to the flush
Fran Ardley looks at how to deal with temptation as you train your dog to be steady to the flush. Last month we looked at getting your dog steady to shot, whistle and the artificial flush of a dummy being thrown while your dog is hunting. The next step needs very careful planning and consideration.
If you plan to use your dog in the shooting field, it will need to be steady to both ground and winged game. In an earlier article (Sporting Gun October 2020) I covered the use of a rabbit pen to get a dog hunting and stopping to the flush of a bolting rabbit. This aspect of a gundog’s training can also be artificially simulated by using remote lure machines or elasticated bolting rabbits, but it is more difficult to set up an artificial bird flush.
When
If you have had your trainee gundog from an early age you may well have noticed from about the age of six to seven months it started taking a lot of notice of birds, especially flying birds. This is the pup’s hunting instinct kicking in and if left to its own devices can quickly develop into chasing, and then you really will have a problem that can be challenging to sort out. A dog that constantly chases anything that is flushed will not only prevent you getting a safe shot at the quarry (if you plan to shoot over the dog) but if you plan to use the dog in the beating line, it has the potential to ruin a drive and may well result in you being asked not to come back.
How
For the majority of novice handlers this part of a gundog’s training will need some professional help and guidance. At the very least, you will want to be training this method with an experienced handler. It is imperative that the previous lessons of stopping to whistle, shot and a thrown dummy have been fully learned by the dog; if you move to this next stage too quickly you will end up with problems that you will then have to try to overcome. Like most professional trainers, here at Tarncrag Gundogs I keep a few homing pigeons and these birds are an important tool in getting a dog steady to the flush of winged game. The welfare of the birds is also very important and that is the main reason I only move on once I am fully satisfied that I have basic control over the dog.