Bruin will be 4mnths old tomorrow, we have been working really hard with his training with the aim to have a well trained dog we can be proud of and I am already incredibly proud of him. We are really fortunate we have access to acres of large hilly fields and tracks where we keep our ponies, he comes daily with me so he gets lots of safe off lead time and follows us very well, so well I have to work hard to get a bit of distance to practise his recall! Although his recall is coming along nicely as is his heel work and basic sit/stay I think is pretty good for his age. Our lovely hilly fields/wooded areas and tracks are also home to pheasants raised for shooting and in spring their are lots of rabbits so before we encounter any issues how do we go about educating him not to chase them. He is working bred and I can already clearly see that drive he has with scent and I know he is going to want to chase the pheasants! He is getting quite quick and dont fancy my chances if I have to run after him uphill if he's intent on giving chase. Am I best to put him on a long line so I can stop him as opposed to putting him on lead & walking before we are ready to do longer bouts without pulling? Any other tips or suggestions welcome.
If you are walking him off lead, I would really work on his recall away from exciting smells. You need to make yourself more exciting than whatever he smells. I used to jump up and diwn, flap my arms about, grab her exciting toy and run in the opposite direction to where she wanted to go. We have now mastered everything except squirrels! Good luck
A good recall and or stop is the only answer. I have rabbits and pheasants running all round my garden this year so I've had plenty of practice on distraction, recall etc with Juno. She's flushed them out of hedges while playing in the garden and not chased when told. I think also the scent has become a bit boring as it's always around. Good luck with the training.
If you have a dog with an abnormally high prey drive, you would probably already have seen a lot of evidence of it (often, these dogs will chase absolutely everything, later homing in on a particular target, or type of target, that gives them the greatest "buzz" - this is according to David Ryan, who has written quite a lot on this - his book is reviewed in the book section if you are interested). Movement is the trigger, although dogs will follow scent to areas where they know they can seek out chase opportunities. But if your dog has never chased pheasants, the fact that he is excited by scent does not mean you might have trouble controlling an instinct to chase (it might, if your dog had already learned the target of pheasants). In a nutshell then, the trick to never having a problem with chasing is never allow your dog to chase freely, outside of your control - you need to control what he is allowed to chase. If that is an object, within your control (balls, dummies, rabbit toys, whipit toys....) then you can direct his desire to chase onto these, and since you control it, it also becomes a massive reward that is a big help to you in keeping his attention redirected. So, if you are worried about it, then yes - stopping him starting to chase pheasants (I'd go so far as to say any wildlife at all) is very wise. A long line if you think he is going to leg it, for sure, then see how he is, and if you are right that you have a potential problem then you might have to start working on a programme of desensitisation so he is calm around birds (you need controlled access to birds for this).
Thanks Julie, I suspect he has a high prey drive and the track I like to walk him above our horses field has a feeder placed half way up so probably too much temptation. There are a lot of birds about at the moment some even taking flight across our field. It's a great place for him to walk & play the track up the hill gives us a nice walk outside the restraints of the field without overdoing things for him at the moment so it would be a shame to avoid it. In some ways I guess it's a blessing as it gives us the opportunity to desensitise him and continue his training. Although his recall is very good we have not yet had enough time with him to do nearly enough proofing to be testing it so early, he is only just 4 months old and we have only had him for 5 weeks, I could easily be setting him up to fail. I think a long line would be the best way forward to ensure he doesn't get the opportunity to chase. We are planning to go and get an intro/assessment with an accredited gundog club trainer next week so we can make sure we are going in the right direction with his training and hopefully keep up the good work.
