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Tony Dean Outdoors
Obedience Key to Good Hunting Dog
By Tony Dean
For the Argus Leader
Published: September 6, 2007
How many times have you heard the owner of a good bird dog say, "If I didn't have a good dog, I wouldn't even hunt upland birds?" I've said that often over the past five years I have hunted with Dee, my pointing Lab. She's not just my dog, she's my best hunting partner.
During that time, Dee has found birds I'd never have found without her, and has made some often spectacular retrieves on birds I'd never have been able to recover. Besides, at day's end, she curls up at my feet and makes it clear she is my dog ... and best hunting pal.
Until she came along, I'd never trained a hunting dog. So, I read everything I could on the subject, but kept in mind the advice I received from my friend, Stan Lieberman, a former GFP commissioner and expert dog trainer from Rapid City.
"All we hope to accomplish in training a bird dog is to develop a pattern of obedience that the dog will pay attention to while hunting," he told me. "Remember, the dog's instinct is to find and flush birds, which is what we want unless the dog flushes them far ahead and out of shooting range. That's where obedience becomes important."
Stan's right. I did use an electronic collar when I trained Dee, and still consider it a great training tool, but one that should never be used in anger or to get even with a dog. In fact, before I used it, I shocked myself at every setting so I knew what the dog would go through, and I can tell you that when you get to the highest settings, it's not pleasant.
Yet the collar came in handy in teaching Dee to not chase rabbits, deer or livestock. And while she wears it in the field while hunting, I haven't had to actually use it for several seasons.
It helps if you start with an intelligent dog because smart ones learn quickly, and while you can teach the basic obedience commands, you can't teach bird-savvy. A dog learns that only one way; through experience. Thankfully here in South Dakota where the pheasant populations are at the highest levels in the world, a smart dog has plenty of teachers.
I don't like hunting a dog in row crops, especially those bereft of ground cover because the birds will run and run, and that's where the obedience training pays off.
Even so, Dee and a few other good bird dogs I've hunted with, accomplish some feats that are amazing. Cripple a bird that sails far in front of you, where several other wild birds are running, dispensing scent as they do. How can the dog separate that scent from that of the crippled bird? Darned if I know, but Dee does it often enough to prove it's not accident.
She's unusual among Labs because she doesn't like water. Even so, she made a couple of great water retrieves for me in a Brown county pothole a year ago.
Now allow me to brag a bit more. Don't believe that stuff about how a good hunting dog must be a kennel dog. Other than when boarded, Dee's never seen the inside of a kennel and is a bonafide house dog. It hasn't affected her hunting ability at all.
Finally, each time I drive south of Pierre en route to Lyman County where I do nearly all of my pheasant hunting, Dee falls asleep immediately upon getting in the truck, but awakens instantly the minute the car leaves the pavement and hits gravel. From that point on until we head for home, she's on instant red alert.
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