GUN DOG's "Embarking Together" Episode 4 - Summer

For some reason that, you know, there's the the image in my head of a German Shorthair Pointer. Set my heart on that and I lucked out and got Copper. I kind of want to prove to people, especially newer people that get into it, that you don't have to spend thousands of dollars to train your dog. You just have to spend probably thousands of hours to train them. There was a lot of things, a lot of questions, and in my mind like I, you know, to start the training I have to start, like, teach her, you know, to look for birds and what, but some of the things that I'm seeing is like I'm the one being trained. The biggest challenge we're trying to overcome now is refining his point, you know. The biggest thing I've seen and read and from what I've studied and with these, with this training with pointers is, you know, you don't teach a pointing dog to point, you know, you help them refine their point. So his first bird that he saw was, he got super excited and he got very excited. He's very excitable by the sight of these birds now and, you know, going from that to getting them in a launcher and now trying to get that point locked in and this new equipment is hopefully going to help with that. You know it's, you're going to have to invest when these, when you decide, when you make the decision to get the dog and I, you know, the investments have turned into not just the dog, it's the more of the tools that I need to help train him. So this is the pigeon loft, the old woodshed that I got. The three I have now, they're in a cage and I'm going to fly out because we're going to be, I'm going to be using them in a minute. What are you about to do, huh? You know, you're just chilling. You're just chilling, right? Ready? The goal is to not get him rushing in and get him the point when he smells. So our first bird's not too far, but that's the goal for today is to just get him to know that he's not rushing in on these birds and getting him to refine his point. And if all goes well, hopefully by his last bird we might be in on that. But he's still young, I have high expectations, but I know that it's not always perfect when you're training a dog. Today we're going to be bringing her out on the boat with the blind for the first time. So we're just going to be doing the same thing that we have been the last couple of months, but just kind of putting it into action of when, you know, she's actually going to be out hunting with us. So it's going to be a little bit different for her because she hasn't seen the blind yet. But we'll just be trying to see, I guess, how she does without being able to see where the dummies fall and hope that she listens to my signals that we've been working on. So we're out here trying to train. Before we had the blind on the boat, we used the front of the boat for her to jump off of and then hang the ladder on the side anywhere it would fit. And now that we got the blind on, we're realizing that she just wants to get out whatever way she can and doesn't use the front of the boat anymore. So now we're going to try to swap our tactics here and have her go in and out of this door here. River. Drop it. Drop it. Good girl. Good girl. Come on. Come on. How did you think it went today? Other than the main idea of having her jump off the front of the boat and now just using the door both ways in and out, she seemed to pick it up pretty quick and that went smooth. Yeah, I think it went pretty well. You know, just a little bit more discipline on her end and I think we're shaping up for a good hunting season. So Kriya is almost one this month and we've been working on some training, of course, over the past year. Working on the retrieving, field work. So right now what I'm wanting to see is where she is with everything. I only know what I know. So I'm kind of looking towards, you know, Alec here to give me some pointers, see what I'm doing right, see what I'm doing wrong. I'm open to listening to anything he has to say and what feedback he has to give me, whether it's good or bad. So my name is Alec Sparks. I own and operate Snowbound Kennels. It's in Addison, Vermont. I've been a professional trainer now for 30 years. So this is Kriya's first time actually on planted birds and with a bird launcher. So this is going to be interesting to see. I'm curious how she's doing. She's found the homers. Straight up the hedge row on the left about 40 yards. Get her to go to your left. Move over on that side with her. See if you can get her to come back through here. Come towards me. Okay, now can you get a hold of her there? Call her. Go down on one knee. Just go down on one knee. Call her over. And now just gently hold her. One finger under her collar. Maybe a finger, maybe an arm around her waist. You'll totally find what she's doing. Hey, here, here. So this was the first time Kriya experienced field training with live chucker, bird launcher. This is different. It's unique to see. Saw some different body languages I've not seen yet. I have, you know, talked to Alex about. She's got an interest. But again, I think we saw some of the things where she turned on and her level goes a different level and her listening kind of goes down this way. From a professional, I'm curious to hear what he has to say about some of the things that I was doing right, I was doing wrong, and things I could work on with myself or with her. So everything was totally fine. Like, don't be like, oh my gosh, my dog didn't do this. My dog did that. I'm embarrassed my dog did this. Plan going forward would be manage your dog on a check cord and its bird contacts, okay, and get a handle on that. Recall, change the direction. And for me, the whole foundation of getting responsible bird work when I'm not around is the dog understanding the whoa command. And then it's just, again, that process of gradually or successive approximation where I start adding distractions to all three of those. And I eventually end up back on birds. You know, I think to myself, like, I look at Crea, she's just turned one year. It's like, I feel like maybe my expectations were like way up here, where I need to take myself down a notch. And maybe like, okay, let's, let's, let's slow down. You know, we don't, we don't need to do everything all at once. And I feel like that's kind of what we do. It's like you want to want her to do it all. How can you not as an enthusiastic amateur? I mean, you fool your dog for hours because you're all excited. And then you go in on you go to the chat groups in the forums and, you know, upland journal, and you're talking to them and got 10,000 people giving you different advice. And you're looking at YouTube and the dog trainer, then you got Instagram, and I got these DVDs. And, you know, I bought this book and I'm getting gun dog magazine and wow, talk about TMI. Just watching her and having this experience was a lot to see.