it finally happened!!

[TheClash]

well my boy jet held his first hard hard point last night. in a stubble field on a covey of huns...held it for over 20 seconds as i tried to get there before my other dog flushed them out haha..didn't happen..but boy oh boy was i happy and my boy jet just grinned and grinned!! my older dog, my rhodesian ridgeback...has figured out to watch jet and when he starts to get birdy and starts to point banjo rushes in and flushes the birds to his great delight....hmmm this will have to be corrected if banjo is going to continue hunting with us. lol

i do have a question though...i have a couple of things happening....it seems my dog (1 year old) has about 40-50 mins of hard hunting in him right now..then he starts to goof off a bit. is this normal??...will this improve with more time in the field etc.

secondly.....does anyone else have a pup that thinks deer poop is the most awesome thing to eat ever....yeeesh.....if the goal was to have a dog find poop i would be in the money!!


oh along those poop lines....i thought my pup was finding and eating deer poop at almost ever spot he stopped...however...i started to notice that most spots he stopped there was no deer poop..and in fact it looked like there were scratchings and some bird droppings in most of the spots...is he hitting on old spots where birds have been in the recent past? if so..i am assuming this is a good thing right?

what say you folks.....

[Mark]

Yes I think its normal. He's just like a young kid which bores easily. He probably just gets bored if there is no game. If you can, try to limit the amount of time he spends in one area. Try to run him on small patches where he can hunt for short interval. This way the new scenery and the new spots, should keep him hunting all the time without getting bored. Or run him planted birds or areas with plentiful birds, even if you can't hunt there.

[TheClash]

yup this is what i thought was well, thanks for the help.

[FCLightning]

If you don't want your dog to learn that there is a limit to his endurance then plan your outings to be less than 45 min. at this point. Leave him wanting more.

If you want your new pup to develop as a bird dog, get Banjo out of the field. DO NOT run them together. Once Jet has become the hunting dog you want with all his manners trained and absolutely solid and proofed in the presence of distractions you can run they together again, till then you are asking for more problems than even the best of trainers can fix.

All pups think deer poop is candy. Unless they find horse poop. Cow poop is usually only good for rolling in.

Hitting old scent shows he recognizes it, but he is young and needs to learn through exposure to differentiate between old scent on the ground and body scent in the air. There is little point to allow the dog to piddle around in any one spot regardless of what might be there - deer poop, mice, bird droppings, hot foot scent all require a cursory look and move on. So it is perfectly all right to keep him moving on such things. If the dog is getting bored, pick your places more carefully and shorten his time on the ground.

[TheClash]

great advice fc, thanks...ya as much as it breaks my heart i think banjo will have to stay home more often than not.