Starlings

http://www.ovnavhda.com/

Go to this website, contact one of their directors and find out when they are training. They should be able to assist you in training, location of training birds and possibly if you behave a fellowship of a hunting partner.

Dick

Sharon, some of us learn from others, ie. mentors. Some of us have to learn from our own mistakes. Some never learn. Glad I was able to help you in some small way.

I've always had black Labs, and I never passed on a chance to get the pup to pick up any bird. Every dog I've owned had a blast picking up Starlings and Cowbirds that got pinged from the back patio door. No different than a duck or a grouse. The dog sees you going to get the gun, hears the shot, waits until you send him, then "fetches-up" the bird you just shot. Anything with feathers works for me. I've never had a dog "get stuck on wanting "to retrieve these birds when you're hunting. Those setter poses are absolutely priceless! The look on that dog's face made me have a good roar! What a ham!

Fetching starlings isn't the problem. Hunting tweety birds is the potential negative outcome of training with tweety birds. You don't want your upland dog hunting tweety birds (and they are prevalent, early in the season).

This one falls under the old training adage: "Decide what you don't want your dog to do, and see that he doesn't do it."

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Originally Posted by steelshot

My original question was "Has anyone used them as a training aid" If you use them in lieu of game birds.... Do they flush well when released?....As long as a spices is not found in boreal forest e.g. pigeons there is no risk of your dog bumping something that is not in the habitat you are hunting....Starlings are mostly gone south during hunting season and are not found in boreal forest habitat....Again i will use the example of the pigeon....Its not found in the bush you hunt....So arbitrarily you could use a gray parrot....I used pigeons to train my GSP on ruffed grouse....In the bush when he found himself in the sent cone of a grouse he stood on it....All he knew it was a bird....Later that day he stood on a spruce grouse....And when i bring him to the duck pond he is a statue....All he knows is a bird is a bird....Starling or pigeon makes no difference....All i want to know is how close do starlings sit when released? and general behaviour of the bird....

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Stouffville fair from 5am to 11am every Saturday they sell pigeons grouse pheasant quail chickens ducks rabbits no starlings though

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hunting songbirds is something I haven't done and never will. certain people like it (often because of their ethnic background), but to me there needs to be some purpose in killing an animal (typically for the meat, but not only for the sport). yes, dog training is a bit different, but as I'm not going to hunt songbirds, why train on them.
as for the notion a bird is a bird, the OP is likely wrong (as pointed out before by ohters). and the statement that the dog is solid at the duck pond is just another indication that there is some misunderstanding. feel free to disagree, but I don't want to cross a swamp to release my dog from pointing at a duck LOL
IMHO, ducks are to be retrieved or flushed, birds in the field to be pointed, jacks/rabbits chased, deer tracked, etc.
A dog's utility depends on it's ability to discern different game species! You don't do your dog a favour training him on song birds.

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Originally Posted by welsh

Fetching starlings isn't the problem. Hunting tweety birds is the potential negative outcome of training with tweety birds. You don't want your upland dog hunting tweety birds (and they are prevalent, early in the season).

This one falls under the old training adage: "Decide what you don't want your dog to do, and see that he doesn't do it."

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Good advice.

When my father was alive, he used to clear a square area in our yard from snow. He made a frame from broken hockey sticks with a mesh over it. It fit neatly inside this cleared snow area. He then propped up this net-frame with a stick - the base of the stick had a string tied on it leading through the basement window. He then would throw bred crumbs under said net and wait patiently for clouds of "blackeboords" (starlings) to settle under his net. I think you know the rest.
My Mum would prepare a tomato "meat" sauce adding a very small amount of sausage. The sauce was poured lovingly over a slab of polenta. It was delicious!!
Did I forget to tell you we grew up........humble.
No dog required. :)

Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.

Blackbird shooting used to be a part of hunting apprenticeship as kids grew up but it has more or less faded from the culture. As someone in MNR told me years ago, now everyone wants to jump right into deer and turkey hunting.

Pigeons are supposed to be delicious but I've never eaten one....

In regards to the training bird species debate; IMO pigeons are the way to go, purely for ease of use and re-use not because a dog trained on Starlings would be any less effective than a dog trained on pigeons. Dogs understand what a desirable species is by exposure, experience and reward.

How many folks here actively hunt pigeons? If none, then why did you train with them?

Both surrogate training species (pigeons and starlings) work because you don't often find them in hunting habitats. How many times do you come across Pigeons while hunting grouse? How many times do you come across Starlings while hunting grouse?

If your dog is/was trained on Pigeons and you are hunting Pheasant at a abandoned farmstead out west, would your dog point pigeons it may find on the ground filling its crop?

If the OP wants to train his dog with Starlings I am sure it could be as effective as a dog trained with pigeons, sure there may be logistical advantages to using pigeons over starlings but to say that the dog won't know what a grouse, or woodcock, or snipe, or pheasant is because it was trained on starlings as opposed to pigeons is utter nonsense.

To say that a dog trained on pigeons intuitively understands that a Snipe is a game bird but a Greater Yellow Legs is not, is utter nonsense.

The dog knows the difference between game birds and non-game birds through exposure, experience and reward, not because of the surrogate training species used.