kingstonandy
Well-Known Member
I've got a 1 year old chesapeake bay retriever intended to be my stalking companion.
I started simple training on heelwork and blood tracking whilst he was still very young and he's progressed very well. For the last couple of months he's come with me on most outings and been perfectly behaved at the bottom of a high seat for a couple of hours.
I have shot deer, fox and rabbits with him, but I don't think on any occasion he's seen the quarry prior to the shot.
He has on occasion been distracted by low flying birds when we're stalking a hedgerow, but I thought we were overcoming that.
Yesterday evening I'd been in a seat for an hour when I heard him start to whine below, it was dusk and the pheasants were crossing the field en-masse headed for the treeline in front of me. The dog had seen them and was really struggling to control himself, sitting up quivering with excitement and making an intermittent whine/whimper.
I let him know that I wasn't happy, but it didn't stop so I slipped down from the seat and quietly chastised him and turned him round to face the other way. By this time the pheasants had gone, and I hadn't completely given up on the evening so I got back into the seat.
15 minutes later a rabbit approached to within 20 feet of the dog and again he made no attempt to chase it, but made far too much noise.
This time I wasted no time getting down to deal with the dog, but again the source of temptation was gone so I had no way to test or further train him.
I'm now very concerned, a noisy dog is of no use to me at all so I need to nip this in the bud but don't know how to. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Andy
I started simple training on heelwork and blood tracking whilst he was still very young and he's progressed very well. For the last couple of months he's come with me on most outings and been perfectly behaved at the bottom of a high seat for a couple of hours.
I have shot deer, fox and rabbits with him, but I don't think on any occasion he's seen the quarry prior to the shot.
He has on occasion been distracted by low flying birds when we're stalking a hedgerow, but I thought we were overcoming that.
Yesterday evening I'd been in a seat for an hour when I heard him start to whine below, it was dusk and the pheasants were crossing the field en-masse headed for the treeline in front of me. The dog had seen them and was really struggling to control himself, sitting up quivering with excitement and making an intermittent whine/whimper.
I let him know that I wasn't happy, but it didn't stop so I slipped down from the seat and quietly chastised him and turned him round to face the other way. By this time the pheasants had gone, and I hadn't completely given up on the evening so I got back into the seat.
15 minutes later a rabbit approached to within 20 feet of the dog and again he made no attempt to chase it, but made far too much noise.
This time I wasted no time getting down to deal with the dog, but again the source of temptation was gone so I had no way to test or further train him.
I'm now very concerned, a noisy dog is of no use to me at all so I need to nip this in the bud but don't know how to. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Andy