sit to shot

josie · sit to shot

This is a question for folk whose dogs sit to shot...and who also take their dogs on driven shoots, beating.

Do you find that your dogs are confused regarding when they are supposed to sit to shot? I mean, if you've spent ages drilling that the shot=sit, and then you go on a driven shoot and the dog is allowed not to sit while there are lots of shots happening all around...?

Do you find that the dog is able to discriminate the 2 different situations and to still sit to shot when used for rough-shooting, or does this cause confusion, do you believe?

Thanks.

Rowoodhill · Sitting to shot

Hi, just thought I would reply with how my dogs behave. The work on driven shoots so they should be sat while the guns are shooting.
I did some preliminary work with sitting to shot with my older dog so he would have a fair idea what is required.

I really think that dogs are able to deal with different circumstances and respond in a certain way at a particular time. ie tone of voice to the way you call a dogs name can mean a number of different things.

In my opinion, my dogs have never been 'confused' just they don't bother if they know it won't be enforced. So on a shoot day, as there is no need to 'sit' because they should be sat already, it is not even considered. If the dog is being shot over, the time between the gun going off and the bird being hit is milli seconds so it really is the same as sit to flush.

If the gun misses, because the dogs expect a retrieve from the noise they will more often than not, stop hunting and stand and look towards the noise, and into the air in the hope of seeing the bird, & getting the retrieve. If they can't see a retrieve (ie if the gun has missed), they may well look towards me to handle them (for a blind).

If nothing is hit, I have a 'gone away' command, (which doesn't mean 'go to full blast chasing', and it doesn't mean that they are foxhounds, but it doesn't always stop them from tearing off!!!!!)

Helen

josie

Thanks guys - But Karen, your dogs work as picking up dogs, right? So they're already sitting for the shot anyway? What about dogs that are beating and hearing shots but not sitting to them, although they are expected to at other times...?

windem bang

Josie, dogs seem to be able to easily differentiate between a driven day and a "proper" H.P.R. shooting day. Even H.P.R.'s used for beating seem to be able to make that distinction. In my own case on the few occasions when I've been in the beating line as shots were fired, I did make my dog sit if it had just seen a bird as the shot went off whether that was the bird being fired at or not. I also made the dog sit if the shot was fired close to us.

When picking-up my dogs are often out for a retrieve as many shots are being fired, my dogs ignore them and keep searching. The main difficulty I find under these circumstances is that my dogs will hear the shot and see a bird fall. They aren't angels - they will "swap" birds given the chance. Sometimes then I will insist on a sit but that is to whistle, it has nothing to do with the shot or shots.

This is just one of those things, if my dog swaps birds and gets the "wrong" one, I just accept it with no comment and certainly no correction, then it is sent again for the original bird.

Bill T.

josie

WB, Do you mean that when you've been in the beating line, you've made your dog sit for every shot as if it were being shot over? Shocked

That's a lot of sitting Laughing

Or not many guns, I'm not sure which Laughing

The reason I'm asking this is because, in my idealistic way, I've stayed away from being regularly involved on a shoot. All that stuff about reducing range, spaniels stealing points, this sitting to shot thing and all the rest of the things which can work against you if you want to trial the dog, put me off. We've beat a few times on friends' shoots but not often or regularly.

However, I'm going to trial Slate this coming season and I've realised that the handful of shotover days we are able to go on each season just aren't going to provide enough experience for her on game.

Do other people feel that the benefit and experience on game on shoots outweighs the above disadvantages?

windem bang

Josie there are two contradictory sayings and the funny thing is - both are correct! One saying goes something like, "You can't train a gundog without game. " The other one states, " The worst thing you can do with a gundog is to take it shooting!"

No it's not plain sailing Josie but for myself I come down heavily on the "give them the game" side of things. Pro- footballers don't get to that stage by playing blow-football!

Go for it Josie with everything you've got. If you can get your bitch to retrieve game and then enter trials you may be surprised how far you can go. You do the work before the trial and keep your wits about you on the day but relax a bit and settle down to enjoy it and you'll do fine.
Even if you never win a thing which is unlikely, you will gain in the knowledge you need to make your pup a winner.
Trials aren't nearly as bad to get through as many people think. In H.P.R. Trials a dog that can hunt, can point and can retrieve, land or water will eventually at least gain an award. Steadiness is required and the handling needed in a novice trial is usually minimal. Your bitch will do that part of it standing on her head.

If she was mine I would go all out to get her to retrieve game - if neccessary to the detriment of the rest of her training. That means getting her out among game at each and every opportunity. If she was mine and she ran-in I would shout "GOOD GIRL!!" and praise the hell out of her when she returned with her ill gotten gains!
The rest of her work on retrieving can be trained in or out but your dog must want to pick up game- even if you cannot see her when she finds it.

I did not explain myself well in the earlier post. When beating I do not expect a sit or make my dog sit when it hears a shot. A dog that did sit to shot under these cicumstances would hardly ever get its' backside off the ground at any big shoot! What I do, or to be more accurate, did, was to insist on a sit if a bird happened to be flying close to the dog when a shot went off. The shot did not have to be fired at that particular bird.
I also made my dog sit if a shot, perhaps from a walking gun sent with the beaters was fired within about 50 yards of my dog.
Don't worry too much about this Josie, the dog WILL work it out for itself.

Bill T.

josie

Ok Bill, that sounds sensible!

Yes, the picking warm game does concern me after her bad experience. I wish I could get her more on that front but I'm afraid to try to get any picking up because it seems to be coveted more than beating and also because I can't say we'll be any help on a shoot as she might not pick it!!! So it will have to be beating and hoping that some game will fall on our patch or something!

windem bang

Josie, tell the keeper your problem and ask his permission to take a fresh bird from the game cart to try her on at lunchtime. He is almost certain to agree. Use a still warm hen pheasant (because it's smaller) If you can get your hands on a partridge that's better still. Do your best to use a bird that has little or no blood showing. It should look as if it's just sleeping.

Bill T.

Rowoodhill · Sitting to shot

Hi Helen,

Yes, just to expand on my previous comment, is that on one particular driven shoot, they always seemed to be a lot of pricked birds going over us, and a lot of unshot birds.

I toyed with the idea of saying 'mark' if the dog was meant to retrieve that bird, and 'gone away' if it was unshot. As my dogs think it is as much fun to retrieve unshot ones as shot ones it was always a real control issue for me not to have a pack of hooligans running around - and me a stressed wreck!!
I suppose my 'gone away' is the same as the leave command so really quite simplistic.

Bill - I agree totally with you and that the dogs know the difference between shooting days and trials. Well - for a start a trial is 1 to 1 with the dog so mine know that can't get away with as much!!!

Helen

Are you a member of NOBS Josie? I'm sure someone somewhere may allow you to tag along with them to see how it all pans out. If you tell the keeper you don't want paying, he might not mind so much.

I had an invite last year to go picking up with Teal but I felt it was too much too soon but will try and get some this season. It is a case of once you're known and more often than not, the way to get known is to be in the beating line and do a good job of it. It may even be worth going on the beating line, dogless, to get your face known and chat up a few of the pickers up during lunch (although they are usually back a lot later than the beaters). You never know, you just might strike lucky.

Helen

josie

I think I like the camaraderie of the beating line anyway and the fact that you're moving all the time more than standing still as pickers up anyway Laughing

(I don't know how they can stand around when it's that cold LOL!).

Yes, I'm a member of NOBs and I hope they can fix me up with somewhere.

Bill, the problem is a bit of a weird one. There is much less of a problem once someone has touched the game and it has human scent on it, or once it has been thrown for her as a retrieve. The problem seems to be partly accepting that these things called birds can be a retrieve if they haven't been thrown but have just fallen from the sky and haven't been touched. It is more than that, but I think she knows that there's less/nothing to be afraid of if a person has touched it first (ie it is totally dead!) than if it has just fallen there (and might just spring up in her face like the one that spooked her).

windem bang

Josie, The way in which your dog was spooked has happened several times to pups of mine. I think you know I start my pups on game earlier, sometimes much earlier, than most other people. It has often happened that the pup got a bit of a scare with its first bird and has ran back to me.
I don't make a fuss about that. I have not had one single pup out of all the dogs I've ever had that did not overcome their initial fright and go on to become keen retreivers of game - sometimes too damned keen!!!

If a youngster is a bit dubious and slow to begin to pick game I have one advantage over you. I always have an older experienced dog with me to do the work. Quite often I have had the older dog bring me back a runner and I have shown it to the pup while I hold it, I then despatch it and let the pup "snuffle" it before putting it in the bag. I then just keep sending the pup for birds until it starts to pick them. I don't try to make the pup hold them in any particular way and to start with the retrieve is often very untidy. The bird is brought back by the wing or the leg or the neck, this is the pup developing its' own way of doing this. Usually they eventually hit on the easiest way which is exactly the way you want to see. My dogs are often fairly accomplished game retrievers by the time they are a year old. Sometimes with some pups much earlier than that. I think pups have a more open mind about what they can pick up and carry, I prefer to make use of that open mind rather than perhaps struggle later on in its' development.
I await the howls of disagreement that some of the foregoing will incur from other dog trainers but I stick to what I've said 'cos it works for me and has done so for 4 decades!
Thinking on it I would add that for smaller breeds such as spaniels/ brittanies I would leave it a little later to try to be sure they have the full jaw size and strength to lift a cock pheasant - this has caused me problems in the past.

The idea put forward in an earlier post of going out with a picker-up a few times is a good one. I have done this for beginner handlers for many years. I sometimes take a beginner with me and show them how to manage a drive. Not just the dog work - where to stand in relation to the guns - where to stand to be in a good position to mark the birds. When and when not to send a dog instantly. These things and quite a few more are all useful knowledge for a picker-up. Don't judge a picker-up by how close to field trial standards his dogs are, many picking up dogs are kept on leash until required and do a very good job.

It all depends on what YOU want the dog to be, picking -up can be good practice for trials or if you have no trial interest it is a good day out just the same. The dogs don't have to be at trial standard for steadiness or for handling. I haven't trialled for years, my old bitch Taz has never been to a trial or even a test but she is very good at picking up even though her steadiness is poor.
A trial dog is simply kept steadier by not sending it at once as a bird falls and by not sending it for a runner while that bird is still in view as it runs to hide. This is not the best way to ensure birds go in the bag, that is why some pickers-up who do trial, have one dog that does most of the work and is probably a bit unruly while the prospective trial dog is given only a few carefully selected retrieves on any one day.

If you can "attach" yourself to an experienced picker-up and be quite honest about your hopes and intentions for your dog, you should be able to get quite a few suitable retrieves for your dog and learn a hell of a lot more besides as you "serve your apprenticeship."

I am not against taking an H.P.R. beating but would much prefer, if I was starting all over again, to learn picking-up. I think less can go wrong for the dog and it gets many more chances to retrieve without having to compete with 10 crazy spaniels and half a dozen other assorted breeds for any bird that may be lying around the guns at the end of the drive. If beating is all you can get, do it but if you can go picking -up ,do that for preference.

Bill T.

lagopuslagopus

I would agree with everything Bill has said Josie. The only place that I will take mine beating is up on the grouse moor when t is all HPRs in the line anyway.

josie

Ok, thanks. I just don't think I'm going to get the chance to get any picking up this season, at least to begin with. Maybe if I go along and explain the situation and ask if I can attach myself to a picker up or something, it could work, but I have to be prepared not to find that and to have to beat. Is it better not to get involved at all then, if all I can do is beat?

To be honest, I'm lucky in that the ground which I run Slate on daily just naturally has game on it. Today we flushed 4 pheasant and 3 rabbits, for eg. Some days we go there and we don't find anything, but most of the time we find something or other. So she is getting experience at hunting, pointing, flushing, steadiness etc this way. Is going beating a bit superfluous then and I'll be risking all the problems for no gain??

The thing is - the bit which we need the most practice at is the "connection" between the end of the hunting sequence (sitting and watching the game fall) and the beginning of the retrieve sequence (being sent). I am chucking a dummy after we've flushed something, but it's not the same.

Claire

This is a very interesting thread so thanks for starting it Josie and I hope you don't mind me jumping in a little Very Happy

It is applicable to me because Gary is part of a syndicate on a driven shoot and so Harris is essentially a picking up dog which he loves and is very good at. Last season I let Whistle sit and watch the goings on just to get a feel for what life on a shoot is like. At one point she was very keen to go retrieve a pheasant and so I let her off the lead and she ran right up to it, sniffed it and just stood there. So I let Harris retrieve it and she promptly followed him back but made no attempt to take it off him. She did retrieve a pheasant but it was one that was only just a little warm and had just been thrown down on the ground by someone. I didn't give her any command to retrieve it she just decided she would pick it up and parade a little, so I just let her and she put it down after a couple of minutes.

This season I was thinking along the lines of ensuring she sat whilst all the guns are going off and then letting her watch Harris and the other dogs pick up. And then only when I decide I can control the situation and send her for a bird that will be an easy retrieve was I going to let her attempt to retrieve (assuming she will pick up the bird of course). If I can get her retrieving confidently then I was just going to play it all by ear and perhaps send her out for more birds whilst trying to ensure she avoids runners and pricked birds for fear of knocking any confidence she might gain.

Thoughts on my plan of action anyone ? I'd be grateful for your advice too Very Happy

Claire

Josie

I wonder if you could post something on NOBS about you wanting picking up experience to help train your dog, you don't expect payment, and would be willing to stand behind the pickers up and perhaps just send your dog for the odd bird here and there until she gains enough experience for you to be a more active and perhaps regular picker up? Maybe even by Slate just standing and watching the other dogs will help her make the connection ?

Just a thought Smile

windem bang

O.K.Josie, she is a fairly experienced hunter and pointer. She has also got experience at flushing and then stopping. There is not much left for a beating line to teach her except to continue to behave while other dogs are misbehaving!

Whether beating or picking up she will have to ignore whole fusillades of shots going off and get on with the job, hunting or retrieving.

When I started with h.p.r.'s I had shooting ground of my own, in fact I had more than one place. I shot over my own dogs or had others shoot for me. This is the best possible training for h.p.r. trials.
I could easily have avoided any problems by never going to shoots as a beater or a picker-up. Instead of doing this I continued going to shoots.
I felt that I enjoyed shoots and that my dogs sometimes gained more in experience at retrieving there on a busy shoot than they would have got with me shooting over them once or twice a week.

I had no serious problems and my dogs very quickly knew the difference between that kind of work and h.p.r. work, they responded differently.

One shoot I went to as a picker-up, I found after I got there, expected to shoot 700 - 800 birds a day over double guns with loaders. I consider myself a sportsman and do not like this kind of shoot. My dogs that day were two labradors and a Brittany.
The shoot was on a Thursday and I had a trial on the Saturday for the Brittany. So many birds were tumbling all around us that by the third drive of the morning my Brittany was using her brains. She was jumping over the top of dead and wounded birds and only going for what she thought would be a runner!

My labs by this time were doing much the same and I was collecting the truly dead birds by hand. It didn't matter too much about the labs- they would have time to get over it. My brittany by the afternoon was no longer steady, she'd had far too many birds but I couldn't just withdraw, I was there to do a job. You would have thought the Brittany had never had any teaching to sit to shot and not much about steadiness either. It was a nightmare.

I did go to the trial and I thought she would maybe not sit to shot, maybe not be steady and would be very likely to jump right over a dead bird lying in the open for all to see while she looked for a runner.
She was fine, she went back into normal h.p.r. mode and if I remember correctly she was placed in that trial.

That was a long preamble to simply saying don't worry too much about sit to shot or steadiness, on the day of the trial your dog will probably be just fine! If not you've still got your whistle and your voice.
Get her out picking-up any way you can do it!

Bill T.

Helen

I have my spaniels for beating with and even on one very large commercial shoot, I go by myself as it is too much for my springer to cope with. They release huuuge amounts and shoot 3 times a week throughout the season (keeps me employed anyway!). The only time that Teal will come on a driven shoot, is grouse beating and when I pick up. When I pick up, it will be on a small shoot where the bag is never over a 100. My plan is to take my spaniel and get her to do most of the work and then send her for an easy one.

We are incredibly lucky in that we have access to shooting so can go out whenever we want. We have rabbits, partridges and grouse. We also have a few friends that have expressed an interest in shooting over Teal once she is trained.

I think if I was in your position Josie, I would take whatever I could, although I would hate to go on a beating line on a driven pheasant shoot. Partridges may be a little more suitable as the ground we cover, is very similar to the space we have when grouse beating.

Helen

josie

Ok, I will try to get some picking up somehow, but if it's beating or nothing, my question is - do I beat, or am I not really achieving anything because she's used to coming out with me and we have game on the land we go daily?

windem bang

If you enjoy beating, do it Josie but I.M.O. your dog won't gain much from it. Your main reason for going beating is to get newly shot birds to retrieve. As a beater you may not get many chances to do this and your dog would probably have to compete for any possible birds with the other beaters dogs. Most of them will grab a bird with no hesitation even if they see your dog find it in front of them.

Twist a few arms, wink at the right guys, but go picking -up Exclamation

Bill T.

tashap

Jo I'm sure you'd be welcome to come with me but we do a days work regardless of what happens come rain or shine Smile

If you want I can arrange for you to come minus dog or for half a day so you can see what happens, its a pretty typical shoot and the dogs are nice, the keeper shouts but most of them do Laughing

Sally

I think beating can be useful but depends on the shoot. I take Chani out on a commercial driven shoot and she can't range far 'cos we drive through maize and the keeper likes a really controlled line with dogs keeping to their beat.
Our second shoot is a small family shoot through woodland and here the HPR comes into its own. There's a small number of birds, with no more than 25 -30 on a good day (they can't shoot). The family and friends supply any number of untrained black labs and the gamekeeper brings his Springer and there's me with one or two Weims. The untrained black labs of the family race off and we work the edge, hunting through the undergrowth and putting up birds. So on this shoot we get a lot of hunting through difficult ground and the girls are far more steady on deer than before!

Picking up - been asked to pick up on a local shoot this season which will be good. Not sure who we will take. The puppy, just five months, is already picking up pigeon. My gamekeeper has been shooting pigeon and Fade is very happy to pick up for him!

Helen

We go on two commercial shoots, as well as 2 small syndicates, and a family shoot. On the commercial shoot, a lot of the time, the beaters are told to keep their dogs in after the drive as the guns want to pick up the birds, as well as the pickers up. On the days that the beaters are asked to go and pick up, it really is a free for all. It's certainly somewhere I wouldn't take an inexperienced retriever. You don't want your dog to be coming back with a retrieve and andother dog mugging it.

As Sally has said, the small shoot she goes on is more suitable so it may be a case of trying to get into one of those.

Helen

sit to shot

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Sitting to shot