josie
|
1st day picking upSo, as some of you may remember, Slate had a problem retrieving warm game and was quite spooked by it last year and often blank it and refuse to "see" it.
After being advised to get some picking up and then being lucky enough to be invited to pick up, Slate and I did our first day today on partridge. We had a great time!!
I was really lucky that I had an experienced picker up to guide me, whose dog has pyo (but will be ok), so he was dogless today and really just stood next to me and explained all the drives, where the beaters were, where the birds would be pushed, what to watch out for, where birds might fall and when to give up on looking for a bird.
I was really surprised but Slate didn't blank anything! I think this was helped by the fact that it was a partridge day because she probably found them less intimidating than pheasant. The first couple of birds she pointed and I had to tell her it was ok to fetch them.
The first few were totally dead but towards the end of the day she had some which were still moving and was ok with these too. She didn't get any runners, which I'm glad of for today (I really hate the idea of sending her for runners because she sees them as ground game and she's been taught to stop to ground movement, how do people get round this conflict, does work on runners inevitably wear down steadiness? In the first drive a pricked partridge ran across an open stubble field in front of her and she just sat! Luckily a lab got it!)
She pointed, held her point and flushed and was steady on command several times while we were just hunting along with a walking gun a couple of times. Although the points were on pheasant and we weren't shooting pheasant so she didn't get a retrieve off those.
But her piece de resistance was when a bird came down on the opposite bank of a fast-flowing river. We were busy looking for another bird further up, and meanwhile (unbeknown to me!) 3 spaniels and a lab had tried to get across and up the bank into the field behind to get the bird. The main problem was that they just weren't going back and up the bank, but hunting along the shore on the opposite bank. By now there was quite a crowd of people watching proceedings. Well, we set up and I sent her. She went down, into the river (remember, we had water problems too), across, where I sat her and sent her back, so she went up the opposite bank and back into the field and then found the bird and swam back with it no problem. I was dead chuffed with her and got told I had fulfilled my role as a picker up, to get the birds which wouldn't be got otherwise and it didn't go unnoticed! Considering this was a blind retrieve across a fast flowing and unfamiliar river, I was v pleased.
The most bizarre moment was during the last drive when a bird was pricked and I saw it run and pointed this out to my picking up-guide (!), and he told me to send her or we might lose it. So I sent her and she got to the fall and the bird was out of sight by then, but then she kept sitting to shot (er, as I've trained her to sit to shot for rough shooting). So, picture a very confused looking dog sitting in the middle of a field with lots of birds falling all around it. Meanwhile a lab went and got the bird I'd sent her for while she sat there looking very confused by all this. When the shot ended, I then recalled her and she came halfway before the next load of shooting started and sat again. Er, I think maybe she can't work during a drive unless I want to give up the sit-to-shot for rough shooting and trialling idea...!??
Any thoughts on either of these issues....?!
But over all we had a great day and I'm so pleased our main problem (not picking stuff up) hasn't happened today! And swimming happened too. FTs here we come, I just have to stop procrastinating and send off some forms!
|
weima
|
Sounds a great day Jo, well done!
I think the last drive you described is just lack of experience. A dog should know the difference between gun shot going off & going for a retrieve to which Slate didn't. It will come in time but perhaps you need to send her for some runners [& I fully understand why you didn't want her on runners] to get the real hunting drive for retrieving into her?
|
windem bang
|
Very well done Jo  You and Slate are well on your way to becoming fully fledged pickers-up! An umpteenth dog down eyewipe on labs and spaniels over a river? I'm jealous
The "runner" situation and the sit to shot situation you mention, I have quite often seen before with both spaniels and H.P.R.'s and to a lesser extent even labradors. I think these will cease to be problems as the dog gains in experience. I watched the runner situation happen in a novice trial to a very well trained springer spaniel belonging to a friend of mine. A rabbit was wounded and the dog could see it move away. The dog refused to budge from its' sit when told to retrieve, it just sat there with a sort of " No, I'm a good girl , I don't chase rabbits !" look on its face. The handler was out in this trial but later did well with this dog.
One of the reasons I take my dogs at a young age to shoots when I go picking -up is that they learn to go for runners BEFORE they are fully trained not to chase. Much the same applies to sitting to shot, they learn to ignore barrages of shots while out for retrieves BEFORE they are anything like fully trained to sit to shot.
Dogs seem to be able to understand what to do in differing situations. A shot or shots following a flush or shots fired while they are at a shoot picking up. I haven't had any problems with this and I don't think you will either once the dog has experience of both scenarios.
Get in for those trials, your dog will probably breeze through them! (Get a couple of pheasants under your belt first though!)
Bill T.
|
Helen
|
Well done Jo! Sounds like she did really well!
Helen
|
Helen S
|
I can see why Slate was confused - so was I 
What a star she was, you must be chuffed to pieces with her 
Thankyou Bill and Claire for explaining the process, I'm glad the dogs learn what to do in different situations because it had me stumped.
Helen S
|
Claire
|
Sounds like you had a great day Jo and Slate did really well
As time is going on I am beginning to understand that some of the errors that Whistle is making is not because she is crap or because I am a worse trainer than I already deem myself to be  but because she is lacking the experience that will come with time and more exposure. Mind you if I'm still saying that at the end of this season then I'm talking crap and she is crap and/or I'm a crap trainer 
|
weima
|
Quba has already got 1 full season under her belt & this season it is like taking a complete novice out!  She hunts extremely well & points really well but she looks at dead birds like she's never seen them before 
I am not worried about her as training a dog is all about 1 step forward, 2 steps back
Whistle will get there in the end as will Slate but lack of experience is a key factor.
|
Claire
|
Lack of experience on the handler/trainer's part is also a key factor as unfortunately I cannot give Whistle as much help as an experienced person would be able to, so we both have to muddle along as best we can, both gaining experience at the same time and hopefully learning summit 
|
weima
|
| Claire wrote: | | Lack of experience on the handler/trainer's part is also a key factor as unfortunately I cannot give Whistle as much help as an experienced person would be able to, so we both have to muddle along as best we can, both gaining experience at the same time and hopefully learning summit |
I made up a full champion that way! Everyone has to start somewhere & hopefully learn from mistakes although I still seem to have made a few mistakes the same
|
josie
|
Ok, well I am in LA at the moment and it's 5am and I am jet-lagged so this might not make any sense but...
Yesterday, before we left, I was running Slate on our usual training ground and she disappeared around a bend in the hedge. There was then the sound of much wing-beating and flapping and she reappeared with a still-moving cock pheasant in her mouth! There is a shoot on the slope opposite and the bird had been pricked and lying there for a day. I checked it for hard mouth and it was fine.
So maybe this really is the end of our problems on warm game, as I was a bit afraid she was going to be ok with partridge but still spooked of pheasant, but as this was a living cock bird, I'm very hopeful our problems are over....god I'm sure something else will fall apart now, there's always something.
We gave Grey a retrieve with it too and she was great with it. She is absolutely in lurve with any type of game, warm or cold, even when you're carrying it she will bug you for it for ever. It's now in the freezer for future use.
|
Mike
|
Fantastic Jo!
|
windem bang
|
Thats great Jo, you will be much easier in your mind now.
Bill T.
|
sako75
|
Brilliant Jo ,
I am so chuffed for you both.
Barry 
|
josie
|
We did our 2nd day of picking up today and, after the WCGB shotover day yesterday too, I am now totally knackered
Today went really well, Slate picked loads of pheasant with no probs whatsoever. Highlight of the day was when the seasoned picker-upper's old GSP went on point at the same time as Slate on a well tucked in pheasant. They looked very stylish together and I got his attention and we had lots of time to admire them before deciding who should flush it (Slate did), as they were both level so it was hard to tell who was backing who.
Slate is getting a bit keen during drives and needed a stern, er, word or more. She hasn't actually run in, but she would if I didn't keep a v close eye on her. It is hard counting birds down and practising steadiness at the same time. It is so hard when they plummet from the sky with a squawk and then lie there flapping around. I don't think you can really practise for this in any other way - chucking dummies around and even living game flushing just isn't the same thing, right?? She is totally steady to living game flushing, but 100mph descending pheasants are obviously interesting.
Have to say, my game-despatching is the thing which needs most practise and I think I am in need of a priest!
|
windem bang
|
Another good day for you Jo, great fun and hair raising "fun" at times isn't it?
Get someone who is good at it to demonstrate the correct hold of a pheasant for a one handed despatch. I can take a pheasant from two dogs at the same time and kill each bird at the same time, one with the left hand one with the right. This skill is also useful if you have to handle one dog onto a retrieve while taking a wounded bird from the other dog and despatching it quickly, it means you have a hand free. It's just a skill I've had to learn as I commonly work two or three dogs at the same time while picking up.
I like or prefer to use a priest on birds like ducks whose heads can turn right round.
Bill T.
|
josie
|
Do you spin them, WB?? I tried spinning a partridge today but let's just say that it didn't happen as quickly as I wanted and now I feel v guilty!
|
windem bang
|
Hi Josie, I think we've all been guilty of not ensuring a quick clean death.
Yes I spin them but that is only part of it. It is difficult to describe in print. If I have both hands free for use I take the bird in my left hand and put the birds head in such a way that my thumb on my right hand goes long ways along the underside if the birds beak, your sense of touch will tell you when your thumbtip is between the head and the first of the neck vertebrae. The other fingers of the right hand go over the top of the birds head with the pinky nearest the beak point. This puts the forefinger in alignment with that same vertebrae but on the opposite side from the thumbtip. The bird is released from the left hand and dangles twixt finger and thumb. The finger and thumb are pushed in firmly and the bird is spun but a flick of the wrist is given at the same time. The vertebrae parts due to this. The birds own weight helps in this and for me it works very well.
The best and by far the kindest way to practice this is on stone dead birds killed by the shot with no damage to the neck. It works just the same and obviously can cause no distress to the bird or to yourself!
One of the reasons I like my dogs to do a good delivery to hand is that should two of my dogs return with runners at the same time I can take the birds straight from the respective dogs mouths using one hand to take the correct despatch grip before the birds have left the dogs mouths. If the position is not exactly right in my hand I shuffle my fingers around to adjust it.
This is not a method that only I do, I saw another picker up do it more than 30 years ago and at once saw how useful it could be during a hot drive with lots of birds falling. Done properly it is very quick, much quicker than it reads!
It does work with ducks and even geese but if the grip is not just right you are back to spinning the bird, spinning does not work as well as I would like on either of these birds. For preference I would rather use a priest on them.
Bill T.
|
josie
|
Another good day's picking up, although nothing spectacular to report!
Oh, except for the fact that this shoot has wild turkeys on it, hatched by the keeper (!), and I was waiting before a drive in a very quiet wood with Slate, and I heard a twig snap behind me. I turned around and there, silently watching me only 2 metres away were 9 turkeys!!!!!!! I have to say I was a bit freaked out as I hadn't expected to be meeting any turkeys let alone so many, so silently It was like a scene from a horror movie when someone turns around to find [insert suitable horrific thing]!!
It was then an interesting drive as they didn't care about the shots and can't really fly and I was afraid Slate would try to flush them when on a retrieve and end up pegging them So, working in the area where they were was a bit hazardous!!
|
|
|
|