versitile question

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Originally Posted by little brit

Your hunting in 7ft high cattails on the bank of a marsh....you shoot a duck and it goes down but glides behind you. You didn't see where it landed but you know it went down and you couldn't mark it. How do you handle your dog to get it if you didn't see it land yourself.

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So for the 'Labbers' how do you work this scenario?

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Originally Posted by little brit

Your hunting in 7ft high cattails on the bank of a marsh....you shoot a duck and it goes down but glides behind you. You didn't see where it landed but you know it went down and you couldn't mark it. How do you handle your dog to get it if you didn't see it land yourself. This is where your duck search training comes in. You send your dog in the rough direction you think it landed and let your dog work it's nose to find it.

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Originally Posted by jobbershunting

So for the 'Labbers' how do you work this scenario?

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Or for the 'spanielers' or 'versatilers' too - you handle the dog to what you consider the general area of the fall and give them a "Hunt dead!" or "Hunt 'em up!" command.

MG

don't take shots at birds that will fall in 7ft cattails. ;)

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Originally Posted by bardern

don't take shots at birds that will fall in 7ft cattails. ;)

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Forget the smiley, this is a very worthy comment, something more hunters should pay attention to. Even with a very skilled retriever, taking these kind of shots can be low percentage retrieves.

What Crackered said is a typical approach for finding birds in heavy cover when one is faced with that challenge.

So getting back to Barry's initial question then, the Vdog folks handle their dogs pretty much the same way as the labbers. The training aspect is different though, for me I want my dog to do well in the UT test (including the duck search) so I hold off on training the dog to handle until after I am happy with the dog's duck search (1-2yrs old).

Labs are no doubt more adapt to taking and sticking to a line but that is also a function of training. In an honest assessment from my five years in NAVHDA, few handlers/trainers focus on a dogs retrieving skills beyond the 100yrd mark. That is not to say that a well trained vdog can't take and hold a line, a friend of mine used to be heavily involved in the lab FT scene in NY but has recently shifted to GSPs, he trains his pointers just like he trained his labs, though he will be the first to admit it takes more time and effort to get the same results.

Good post, jobbers. Vdogs are plenty capable - and plenty trainable too.

MG

Drew I got to hunt with Steve Rowland's griffon a few years back. impressive little dog, steady and best of all he really enjoyed what he was doing. I am not sure if Steve had him running blinds at that point??

If you ask Steve though it was my lab Guage that brought back the $100 reward band on that hunt. LOL

Not to sure on where Steve is with Ruby but when I was first helping him get started that dog had a lot of natural ability and a strong desire to please. The picture he has with her coming back through the field with the goose is a beauty.

$100 reward band eh...I wouldn't believe if I hadn't got one of mine own two years ago, not to sure we will see many more of them in the future.