By the time you’re reading this, fall should have started to make its way to the Gulf Coast, bringing cooler temperatures and signaling that duck and goose seasons are right around the corner. We’ve all got our routines to get prepared, and those of us with retrievers, spaniels and pointers need to be sure they’re ready for opening day. With a little luck, it’ll be a banner season with full straps and great dog work.
With roughly nine months off, dogs can easily put on a few extra pounds and get rusty if not worked during the off season. They need to stay physically and mentally fit to do their jobs. This off season, I wasn’t able to train nearly as much as I usually do because of work and other commitments. I noticed that my Lab looked a little heavier than usual, so in addition to cutting back her food, I made it a point to take more long walks as well as letting her run off some energy in a neighborhood park whenever we could. She’s slimmed down nicely and should be back to “fighting weight” when the season arrives.
Managing the physical side was fairly easy, but the mental side was more of a challenge since we didn’t train as much. If you find yourself in the same boat as me, no need to worry, there’s still time to get your dog where you want it to be.
Work through any issues
An undesirable issue I encountered was that my dog got so excited when we did train. She was almost too enthusiastic. She’d “creep” out a little when each mark was thrown and would be further out from heel than I wanted her to be.
Creeping, if left unchecked, leads to breaking, which nobody wants. It’s a bad and dangerous habit that’s hard to fix if dogs are allowed to get away with it. We worked through it by having her at heel on a small wooden pallet and reinforced that she needed to stay on it. If she didn’t, a mild correction with the e-collar was given. She figured it out in short order, though denying the retrieve and picking up the bumper myself seems to have been just as effective. From there we progressed to a rubber mat, then nothing underneath her.
When getting a veteran or even a novice tuned up, get it familiarized with where it’ll be hunting and the place it will work from. The best time to do this is when getting the blind ready. Let the dog check out the area so it learns the “lay of the land.” Throw marks into the area birds are likely to fall. To do so, figure out what the wind direction will likely be while hunting, which will dictate where the birds will come in from.
Set your dog up for success
It’s also not a bad idea to put some decoys out so the dog can work through them and move through the lines easily and confidently. With more mechanized decoys hitting the market, be sure the dog is used to them before the hunt. All the flapping, water agitation and spinning can grab their attention. They’ll get used to them in time but why wait for that to happen during the season? The last thing you want is a dog coming back with one of them when a real duck is on the water.
An extremely important concept to train for is dictating what order the dog picks up birds. Say a flight comes in and several birds are dropped out of it, the last bird to hit the water is the one the dog is likely going to focus on given it has a clear view of the hunting area. Would you want the dog to pick up the last bird shot floating belly up 20 yards away, or the cripple further out trying to swim off into cover? Before the dog leaves, get it focused on the cripple. If it can’t see it, treat it as a blind retrieve and direct the dog with whistle and hand signals so that bird is not lost, then the dog can make the easier retrieves.
There’s still time to get our four-legged partners ready for the season, so work at it as much as you can until then. It never ceases to amaze me how smart, determined and willing these animals are. “Quit” just isn’t in their vocabulary, and they’re more excited to be out there than you are. Those jitters will fade quicker than you think, so be patient and cut them a little slack when it’s not a serious offense. They do it for you every time you miss!
The post “Get your hunting dog back in tip-top shape” first appeared on LouisianaSportsman.com.
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