In watching some outdoor shooting shows I wondered just how intensively you have to train a gun dog. Does it have to be done from the time they are a puppy or can you train an older dog to become conditioned to the gun shots?
Is being a gun dog something a retreiver type dog will just pick up naturally, or is constant reinforcement required to retrieve properly without chewing up the bird and staying at attention?
Could you train non-retriever types like a pit bull or a bichon frise to be good gun dogs?
It’s best to start out young, with things like fetch and scent games. Early on, you want to study the puppies, and see which ones have the traits you want. Obviously, a dog that gets easily distracted wouldn’t be good. For example, pointing isn’t something that can be taught, and not all puppies have that trait. Yes, you must teach dogs to retrieve properly. Dogs also have to be taught not to run trash (chase animals that it’s not supposed to). How much enforcement is needed will depend on the animal.
I know very little about gun dogs but recall reading an article about buying gun dogs many years ago. Unless my memory is far worse than I thought, I am pretty sure that many of the important traits of gun dogs are inherited and well bred gun dogs are just as important as well trained gun dogs. I got the impression that only certain well bred breeds were capable of doing the job.
It takes intensive training and not all dogs will pass the training. Some dogs don’t like gunshots. Some (even water breeds) don’t like getting wet. Some won’t give up the game when they’ve retrieved it. Some go play.
Sometimes you can find puppies for sale that the breeder has evaluated for training and determined to be only of pet quality. These generally are much cheaper than a potential gun dog.
A bichon, in your example, really isn’t big enough to do the job. A pit is big and strong enough, and most of the ones I’ve had close contact with were very eager to please, so I guess it’s possible. I’m really not keen on asking a pit to retrieve “food” as it were.
It must be possible in some cases, or else how would gun dog breeds have been developed in the first place? Not every pit bull or bichon frise would make a suitable gun dog, but in any sufficiently large population of pit bulls and bichon frises there will be a few individuals who happen to learn better than others how to be a good gun dog. A century or two of selective breeding later and you’ll end up with a new breed of bichon- or pit-bull–based gun dogs.
It takes quite a bit of training, and VERY importantly never allowing the dog to do things that are likely to distract it in the field. If a dog is allowed to chase a rabbit even once for example, it will be darned hard to ever make it NOT chase a rabbit.
So in the early training it is important so control the situation so that such things don’t happen. Later on, a good dog will be so interested in the intended behaviors that they are much less likely to be distracted.
Took 6-8 months with both my pups, choc labs. Started them on day 49 per Richard Wolters, author of Water Dog and Gun Dog, and never looked back. Had Bear on triples and Sasha on doubles before they were a year old.
He’s also written a book called Family Dog for those who do not hunt but wish to have a well behaved and happy animal in the house.
I don’t know but such a dog is a marvel to watch. My dad’s boss had a dog that had been professionally trained. When retrieving from water, for example, he would drop the bird and then go off 20 yards or so to shake. Al sorts of little nuances of that type.
Dropping the bird is a no-no. The dog needs to hold it until putting it in the hunters hand. A wounded bird may play dead while in the dogs mouth, but take off if dropped. The resulting chaos (the dog WILL attempt to catch the bird) can be very dangerous in a boat.
I’ll second the Wolters recommendation. People are constantly amazed at how our dogs are trained…they’d be even better if we had follwed Wolters to the letter.
I probably shouldn’t have used the word “dropping.” It has beenc almost 70 years since I saw the dog work and I don’t really have a crystal clear vision of the actual procedure the dog used.
We had an exceptionally handsome, obviously well-bred golden retriever who had been kicked out by her owner when she was about 6 months old. Everything was fine until one night when my father was cleaning his shotgun. When everything was done, he cocked the gun.
The dog, who had been just hanging around, took off and cowered in the farthest corner in the house.
I shudder to think what would have happened if a gun were ever fired around her.
What we did was find a shallow pond, shooter and dead bird pitcher by the pond, dog with handler a couple hundred feet away. Then we’d pitch the bird, fire a round and send the dog. We’d move him in closer with each toss and within thirty minutes I could shoot right over the dogs head and his only reaction was excitedly looking for a falling bird. It was a beautiful sight.
It takes a couple or three things. First a dog with good hunting/pointing/reprieving instincts. Breeding counts for a lot but it is not everything. Second is training. There is no reason that you can’t train the dog yourself if you have a good book and the time. Professional training is good but can be expensive and may cost more than someone who just wants to go out for a couple weekends during the pheasant season is willing to spend. Third, if you want to train the dog on your own, is patience. If you train the dog yourself a fair amount of the training is going to be on the job.
I once had a big Labrador, as sweet and well mannered a dog as anyone could wish. After running him through obedience training when he was about a year old we started working on retrieving and ranging. By hunting season that year he was doing and adequate job but I was horse and had nearly worn out an Acme Thunderer whistle. It wasn’t until his third season that he was doing a really good job of ranging and was starting to hold his points. Yes, the Labrador would point. For the next ten years he was everything I wanted. Every year he got better. For the first couple years I would throw him out of the truck a half mile or so from the place we were hunting just to blunt his enthusiasm a little. A purist would never have been satisfied with him but he was good enough me.
In a way I’m sorry I wrote this. He has been gone for twenty-five years but I still miss him. He was a good dog and died a virgin.