Training Hanoverians

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barongcw

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There are a number of fellow members, mainly living in the North as far as I can make out, who think that we who believe in precise training with scentshoes and tracking collars and such like are seriously overegging the pudding. That is putting it mildly!

The late lamented 6pointer was a case in point.

I think in certain cases they are right. That view may come as a surprise to some of you.

It is no different from learning a new language. For that there are two ways; either you study it throught books at school with lots of boring grammar and excercises or you go to the country and are put in a household that only speak that language.
By hook and by crook you are forced to learn it and after a few years you may not be able to explain the rules of grammar but you are certainly able to explain your views to the locals.
Jagare, do you agree?

Therefore those lucky enough to have access and time to seriously shoot deer, let us say an absolute minimum of 50 days a year, should be able to have a very good working hound in a few years of practice.
That hound might not know the finer points of tracking but with his vast practical experience he should be eminently useable in the environment in which he is used to work.
What I do not know if, if such a hound is placed in a totally different environment would perform. Would he be put off by cattle or a large noisy pheasant pen with birds all around him? And how about crossing busy roads?

So all in all I still prefer the training way but I am turning much more than a few months ago to the fact that these northern hounds not only have their uses but can be bloody good.

Or am I telling you that 2+2=4?
 
George, I did Swedish classes when i firsts moved here through the local college.
I think its difficult to explain on a forum about a new form of dog training like tracking.
Very few would get a Lab or a Spaniel and take it out working at 4-5 months with no training and expect to end up with a good dog. Look how you train a Lab or spaniel, you throw dummies, fire them into the great beyond with dummy launcher and all the other training aids to end up with a good working dog.
So why should it be any different for a tracking dog. Training a dog to track to a reasonable standard is as easy as training a spaniel or lab to retrieve. Before i new better i had dogs that i thought we great deer dogs. I now know that if i had given them training in tracking then they would have been twice the dog they were.
Its nice to see there are those out there who are keen to learn how to get the best from a tracking dog.
In the future you will find that Tracking in the Uk will take on its own form. It won't be like the German, Danish, Swedish but will take the bits that are relevent and will develop fit the UK way of stalking.
I'm sure people take great care in pick there dog that they are going to use for tracking . They will have the dog for over 12 years with a bit of luck. So why not train it to a reasonable standard. No need to train it to track 40 hour trails unless they want to of course, just get it to a reasonable standard. It ain't difficult.
 
George, I did Swedish classes when i firsts moved here through the local college.
I think its difficult to explain on a forum about a new form of dog training like tracking.
Very few would get a Lab or a Spaniel and take it out working at 4-5 months with no training and expect to end up with a good dog. Look how you train a Lab or spaniel, you throw dummies, fire them into the great beyond with dummy launcher and all the other training aids to end up with a good working dog.
So why should it be any different for a tracking dog. Training a dog to track to a reasonable standard is as easy as training a spaniel or lab to retrieve. Before i new better i had dogs that i thought we great deer dogs. I now know that if i had given them training in tracking then they would have been twice the dog they were.
Its nice to see there are those out there who are keen to learn how to get the best from a tracking dog.
In the future you will find that Tracking in the Uk will take on its own form. It won't be like the German, Danish, Swedish but will take the bits that are relevent and will develop fit the UK way of stalking.
I'm sure people take great care in pick there dog that they are going to use for tracking . They will have the dog for over 12 years with a bit of luck. So why not train it to a reasonable standard. No need to train it to track 40 hour trails unless they want to of course, just get it to a reasonable standard. It ain't difficult.

Jagare,

Do you think we ought to write a series of articles on the website like

1 What a tracking dog should know and do and
2 What a tracker should know and do?

Like we do at the NGO?

Might be not only fun but also useful.
 
George,
In the future you will find that Tracking in the Uk will take on its own form. It won't be like the German, Danish, Swedish but will take the bits that are relevent and will develop fit the UK way of stalking.
I'm sure people take great care in pick there dog that they are going to use for tracking . They will have the dog for over 12 years with a bit of luck. So why not train it to a reasonable standard. No need to train it to track 40 hour trails unless they want to of course, just get it to a reasonable standard. It ain't difficult.

That about sums up what took dozens of posts on another thread to say!!!

Its surely no different to the level/ability some people train their gundogs to. Or whether or not a lab or spaniel needs over 30 FTch's in the pedigree for the average gundog owner. That does not mean such an owner should not have such a dog if they are willing to pay for it. Similarly I may not need a HS but I still would like one for my stalking which is in excess of 50 days a year.

George, thanks again for your input, helpful as always.
 
Not entirely sure what you are saying here barongcw. I live as far North as "the late lamented 6 pointer", own a tracking dog (BMH) that as well as being trained with scentshoes, blood, tracking harness and long leash, has gone out with me on a very regular basis learning his trade in live situations since he was about 5 months old. And yes we have cattle, sheep, pigs etc along with large pheasant pens up in the wild and woolly North. He has been about these distractions many times and knows exactly what he is doing.

Do us Northern living people really need you to write a series of articles. Can we not buy, read and understand books that have been written by very accomplished tracking dog trainers. Are we somehow not able to put this information into practice.
 
Not entirely sure what you are saying here barongcw. I live as far North as "the late lamented 6 pointer", own a tracking dog (BMH) that as well as being trained with scentshoes, blood, tracking harness and long leash, has gone out with me on a very regular basis learning his trade in live situations since he was about 5 months old. And yes we have cattle, sheep, pigs etc along with large pheasant pens up in the wild and woolly North. He has been about these distractions many times and knows exactly what he is doing.

Do us Northern living people really need you to write a series of articles. Can we not buy, read and understand books that have been written by very accomplished tracking dog trainers. Are we somehow not able to put this information into practice.

If you have done it all you do not need advice from anybody but from what I have read in these posts there are a number of highly professional stalkers who have hounds that suit their purposes exactly but these hounds have never seen a tracking shoe but learned only from experience. I was and am curious how such hounds would perform when faced with a to them totally new situation.

As far as books go I know of about 6 books on tracking in the english language, apart from Sondergaard all basic. I guess there are some 600 in German some of which go in immense yet useful detail. I suggest you look at Borngraber's " Die Schweissarbeit", 490 pages.

If you know all about hairbooks, the 6 kinds of bone and how to teach a dog "verweisen" the easy way than you do not need anybody's help. I guess not everybody does.
 
Baron, I think you make the point but then miss it entirely. "highly professional stalkers who have hounds that suit their purpose exactly" You may well wish to have what might be considered as the "trials version" of the tracking hound but for most as long as the dog suits their purpose I do not believe that the owner is letting down the side of the breed or the persons who were involved in it's development. As well as my BMH I have 3 springer spaniels. Possibly one of them in the right hands could have made a trials dog but my dogs are working dogs. During the season with keepering my own shoot and beating at others they can work 7 days a week. Are they any less dogs than the FtCh model. Are they in fact perhaps better?
 
Baron, I think you make the point but then miss it entirely. "highly professional stalkers who have hounds that suit their purpose exactly" You may well wish to have what might be considered as the "trials version" of the tracking hound but for most as long as the dog suits their purpose I do not believe that the owner is letting down the side of the breed or the persons who were involved in it's development. As well as my BMH I have 3 springer spaniels. Possibly one of them in the right hands could have made a trials dog but my dogs are working dogs. During the season with keepering my own shoot and beating at others they can work 7 days a week. Are they any less dogs than the FtCh model. Are they in fact perhaps better?

Surely the proof of the pudding is in the eating. A dog I could use and rely is to me the aim but trials are not an end in itself but an aid to training or conditioning as some members would prefer to call it. I see trials as a school exam where an outsider has a chance to comment on faults I might have made in the training.
I also lay a trail when the hound has not done any real work for a few weeks or the strenghen a weak point as not everybody is as lucky as you are to have what looks like unlimited stalking.
In Germany the "main trial" is on live deer. That is in my view as close as it gets to reality. It will take a few years I guess before that happens here.
Your dogs are in my view certainly no less than an FTC on the contrary. It is a pity distances are so great, would love to see them working out a trail.
 
If you have done it all you do not need advice from anybody but from what I have read in these posts there are a number of highly professional stalkers who have hounds that suit their purposes exactly but these hounds have never seen a tracking shoe but learned only from experience. I was and am curious how such hounds would perform when faced with a to them totally new situation. As far as books go I know of about 6 books on tracking in the english language, apart from Sondergaard all basic. I guess there are some 600 in German some of which go in immense yet useful detail. I suggest you look at Borngraber's " Die Schweissarbeit", 490 pages. If you know all about hairbooks, the 6 kinds of bone and how to teach a dog "verweisen" the easy way than you do not need anybody's help. I guess not everybody does.
Barongcw, is it possible to get that book in English. My German is not what it used to be! Interesting comments from you and all above etc, my only input is that some people, like me, like to train their dogs. Like to become absorbed in the finer points of training, relevant to what one may expect to require in the UK or not... ie 40hr old trails. Some like me like to become a student of a sport, in this case tracking and treat it as a sport within its own right perhaps. So each to their own.... train a dog and bring it the highest level possible,, if you enjoy it and so does the dog. Is it necessary, I would say not unless there is some reason that you are prevented regularly from following up a wounded animal for 2 days! My pup is from working BMHs and I'm sure the only difference to a BMH that has done extensive training and tests etc would be the proof that it can accomplish certain tasks on paper. If the hound has been used on 40hr old trails after being brought up to that level, then it knows there will be a reward for following even such an old line. I think it makes the dog no better than a dog that has not undergone such 'training' and I would be glad of either if I lost my Muntie 50meters into some woods. Anyway.. im rambling now.... happy days. If you know where I can get that book in English please let me know. I cant find it. I am an anorak and student of tracking!!
 
Jez while you are talking to the Baron can you ask him how many dogs he has trained to even a mediocre standard. Your sign off Monkey a catch slowly slowly About somes up the Baron im afraid.
 
If you look, the barons account is suspended.... I can ask him for you regarding the book and let you know...

regards, Jez

Cheers Jez.. that would be good of you. Didnt realise his account was off. In fact if there are any good books In English (translations) he can recommend I would be appreciate it. Other than the few American ones. cheers bud
​ian
 
Wildboar /Jez The point i am making is this lets not place some one up on high who dose not deserve it. But if i am wrong and the Baron has trained many dog i would be the first to apologize. Looking forward to your reply,s lads.
 
As he doesn't have the option to reply to this it wouldn't be fair to let this run especially as it's a resurrection of an old thread anyway.
 
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