Training a gundog pup for deer. Advice please

Frank Homes

Well-Known Member
I'm thinking about getting a labrador pup to train as a gundog( i have trained 3 in the past). I would also like to train it to track deer (no experience of this). Any tips as to how i go about this? Do i train it as a gundog and then introduce it to deer or do i just incorporate the tracking into the general training? Any advice would be welcome. Thanks in advance.

Frank
 
Hi Frank, I can only tell you from my own expectancies, do the track work first and start as soon as you get your pup with food association with scent or blood, then do the retriever work later.
 
Best peice if advice I can offer is speak to someone who knows what they're doing. I had a lot of help from a fellow SD member. Also buy and read the Niels Sonderj-whatever book "training dogs for deer" - again I was advised this by the same SD member and it's an awesome book!
 
Frank, I would also suggest going on a dogs for deer course. You don't need to have a dog with you to attend but they do give a lot of practical insight and will set you on the right track, please forgive the Unintended pun.

if you train your dog on birds first you will have to wait a long time for it to mature before you can move to deer. I would suggest as per the other post you just train for deer work only or else your dog will be distracted by game birds whenever out.

i am sure there will be somebody on here that may live locally to you that would be more than happy to give mentoring advise as you progress.
 
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Frank, only to please to help send me a pm with your number,
i have been running dogs for deer courses with NGO and bds for some years now.

​tony
 
BMH society will be a Gamekeepers fair this weekend at Catton if its not too far would be worth coming up to speak to them
 
If you cant make Catton give the Bavarian Mountain Hound society a call, they may be able to help you they are run tracking training twice a month every month. they should be able to help you.
 
It seems to be a popular opinion on this site to train your dog to deer first and then onto birds later, it makes some sense to me but how far should their (tracking) training have advanced before starting retriever training?? How long does it take to train a deer dog before you even start on birds? Also, what else do you train? Surely one or two tracks per week is more than enough to keep a dog interested?

I'm not arguing that you should train for birds first, just wondering about timescales etc.
 
Listen to Tony before the Bavarian mountain hound society.
He knows more than them..
Sorry,that's the truth.
PM myself as well if you wish.
 
It seems to be a popular opinion on this site to train your dog to deer first and then onto birds later, it makes some sense to me but how far should their (tracking) training have advanced before starting retriever training?? How long does it take to train a deer dog before you even start on birds? Also, what else do you train? Surely one or two tracks per week is more than enough to keep a dog interested?

I'm not arguing that you should train for birds first, just wondering about timescales etc.
Shabz,every dog different.
A lab has an inbuilt desire to retrieve,very very unlucky to get one which won't retrieve.
Tracking-not every one will track.Especially if of birdy parents and introduced to game first.Just makes the tracking job harder.
 
Shabz,every dog different.
A lab has an inbuilt desire to retrieve,very very unlucky to get one which won't retrieve.
Tracking-not every one will track.Especially if of birdy parents and introduced to game first.Just makes the tracking job harder.


Agreed, I think I would struggle to get my own lab to any kind of standard of tracking now but she pretty much trained herself otherwise.

How long would you perservere with a lab that makes hard work of tracking? I prefer to not do any kind of serious training until my dogs are a reasonable age anyway, usually between 12 and 18 months, would this give me enough time to have started the pup tracking to a reasonable standard? Maybe by the time it is two?
 
Have a ready of Niels Sondergaards book it will help you train your dog. Reach out to Tony and the BMHS then take it from their.

Tracking isn't rocket science a lot of it is down to your dog's own ability brought on by practice you will pick up quite a bit as you train your dog.
 
The benefit of the BMHS is that there are a number of members from different hunting/stalking/shooting backgrounds. So to say that they know nothing is rather ignorant and insular of the earlier sd member. Speak to many people with knowledge and opinions and move forward from there. Tracking and retrieving in my humble opinion does not have to be such a separate issue in the early days... Important thing with your pup is to get it playing at both and getting its rewards for both. From my experience of training dogs, I was not able to move one dog onto tracking after it had done a lot of retrieving etc on game. Quartering and air scenting were the issues... have fun and dont let individuals put you off with biased opinions. The Niels book is good. i also like an american one called tracking dog for finding wounded deer, by JOhn Jeanneny. I found that a good read also. To answer your question exactly, I have spoken with and asked the same question to very well known and accomplished professional gundog trainers; and the answer is basically, general training to begin to encourage both as i mentioned above, obedience, tracking... then birds later. enjoy.

the BMHS could not find their way out of a sainburys car park let alone find a wounded deer !

thats as far as im going to go on this , im going to shut my gob before i get banned for voicing my opinions
 
The benefit of the BMHS is that there are a number of members from different hunting/stalking/shooting backgrounds. So to say that they know nothing is rather ignorant and insular of the earlier sd member. Speak to many people with knowledge and opinions and move forward from there. Tracking and retrieving in my humble opinion does not have to be such a separate issue in the early days... Important thing with your pup is to get it playing at both and getting its rewards for both. From my experience of training dogs, I was not able to move one dog onto tracking after it had done a lot of retrieving etc on game. Quartering and air scenting were the issues... have fun and dont let individuals put you off with biased opinions. The Niels book is good. i also like an american one called tracking dog for finding wounded deer, by JOhn Jeanneny. I found that a good read also. To answer your question exactly, I have spoken with and asked the same question to very well known and accomplished professional gundog trainers; and the answer is basically, general training to begin to encourage both as i mentioned above, obedience, tracking... then birds later. enjoy.
Rhinoshot.....the BMHS of the UK.It is a farce.People who hardly work a dog on a natural track doing tests that a Chihuahua could follow.
1.Tony knows more about tracking than any one member within that society.
2.Tony knows more than a joint up effort of that society.
3.this is not ignorant nor insular but the truth.
4.following ribbons of blood on the floor is not tracking.
5. You can only learn so much from books,good for basic grounding.
6.you should not do obedience before tracking training......that is very wrong.
Then again Rhinoshot you will extol the virtues of the BMHS as you are friendly with the chairman.Nothing wrong with that nor the chairman.Who if I'm not mistaken organised for you to get your pup,from a kennel that has pumped out 100's yes 100's of BGS dogs.
A kennel that you must pay money up front for a pup before even knowing which sire is to be used for the mating.Nothing wrong in that either as long as it is the correct dog that the pedigree states has sired the bitch......notorious in Poland,that happening,eg different dogs from which is on the pedigree.
Did you get a lot of uptake for charging £400 on top of a price of pup for you to pick up people's pups for them?That would've covered your dogs costs very nicely.
Talk to people who track and don't just read books.People with experience of training numerous dogs to track and work dual purpose dogs and you won't go wrong.
Rhinoshot-what is your experience with training tracking dogs,out of interest,seeing as a few days ago you were saying you are a student of tracking?
You could be at this game for 50 years and we will still learn new things.Thats the beauty with the BMHS,they'll learn in time......
 
Hate to differ from so many knowledgable and experienced handlers BUT i would always train to game first.
May be wrong but i mainly work my dog's on game sometimes on largish commercial shoots and if there is any faillings/weaknesses on the dogs part (althou it will really be down to me and poor training) i would rather have it on the deer side. But i really have little need for a dedicated very highly trained deer dog, the type off deer i shoot (all very boring H/L at very sensible distances)


I would get as much advice off as many people as u can off as wide a variety of people (even muppets like me that disagree with the majority;)), as u have trained dogs before u should have a fair idea wot ur doing, listen to everyone, generally more than 1 way to train a dog and just cherry pick which makes the most sense for u and that paticular dog (ur next dog could be different again)

When u do ur tracking keep it totally seperate from any gundog training and put a colar/harness on all the time when doing tracking to help both u and dog seperate the 2 skills

Have u bought ur pup yet? Might find it easier more natural to train a more old fashioned type (working/keepery/stalker) line than some off the modern FT lines that are now so commmon. Wolverine (even thou he's went to the dark side:stir: ;)) could prob give u more info on better lab lines for deer
 
I'm thinking about getting a labrador pup to train as a gundog( i have trained 3 in the past). I would also like to train it to track deer (no experience of this). Any tips as to how i go about this? Do i train it as a gundog and then introduce it to deer or do i just incorporate the tracking into the general training? Any advice would be welcome. Thanks in advance.

Frank

Frank before you get to confused by it all
the process is easy
train your lab for purely deer work
but you can also do dummy work at the same time for getting your retrieving in order aslong as you just use dummies and not skin/feather lined dummies
eg marked.. Blind .. Long and multiple retrieves water included etc
deer work on a lab is easy and most dogs will be matured by 2 years of age if done right
the transition to game will come naturally to the dog
as the discipline will already be in place from training for deer work
all that is needed next is yourself to get some basic training for deer work , so you know what to expect from your dog and can see which direction you should be heading to make a formidable team that works
you will soon see very early in the training if deer work is not for your dog
​if so you can concentrate back on game instead
 
Hate to differ from so many knowledgable and experienced handlers BUT i would always train to game first.
May be wrong but i mainly work my dog's on game sometimes on largish commercial shoots and if there is any faillings/weaknesses on the dogs part (althou it will really be down to me and poor training) i would rather have it on the deer side. But i really have little need for a dedicated very highly trained deer dog, the type off deer i shoot (all very boring H/L at very sensible distances)

this is the biggest failing of all
not a dig at you but on the general perception of it all
you expect your dog to find a pheasant /partridge or duck/pigeon etc that is small with very little scent often with out a blood trail but the dog should be able to find a good runner on scent alone
but then with a deer that leaves a massive scent trail often with blood or definite scent glands producing you don't care it it fails
then why work it on deer
how much scent do you need for a dog to fail on out of interest before you realise it is you not the dog ??
 
That's just it stone i have never actually had to work my dogs on a deer track, i am pretty confident even with the basic training i have given them and there natural noses it would not be a problem, but any time i go stalking and have a deer down i only send the dog as a last resort even if it means me crawling about for 20mins to find a deer and my dogs sitting back where i took the shot. My dogs are only really basically trained for deer but i'm still confident in their ability if needed and is all i need, but they are not up to the high levels that some of ur dogs are

May sound stupid doing that but i see it as a test to myself, and like i said i don't do fancy shots and often leave a deer for next time if i'm in any doubt as under no pressure for cull targets like many of u have
 
I did pretty much what Stone has said with my Lab, Pointer cross. He had always liked to carry things in his mouth so Alongside working with deer I started working him on dummies at about 8 or 10 months, only about half an hour a day, I got him so he would work to the whistle, sitting on a single peep before being directed left or right with hand signals to a blind retrieve.

I do a bit of wildfowling and usually use my father's dogs as they are mustard but I took him for a Boxing Day flight two years ago and he retrieved 2 teal out of the estuary and a goose off the salting, he retrieves the odd pheasant for me and rabbits and hares. I let the whistle training lapse but what remains is handy as I don't trail him on the lead but can control him with the whistle when following up deer. He will even retrieve Muntjac and Roe kids, adult roe are a bit long in the body for him to pick up and carry though.

I have ended up with a brilliant deer dog (in my opinion anyway) that is also a mediocre retriever. The only trouble is that when he does retrieve something he is a bit hard mouthed and sometimes likes to play tug of war, not the best on a pheasant day but hey ho you can't have everything.
 
Always amazed that all threads like this degenerate into a slanging match between members that should know better.Artificial trails are a staple of the German/Danish tracking training.BMH Soc have training days in the forest of dean when trails are laid,"big deal".Gundog trainers chuck canvas dummies down a field and this is accepted as the normal way of training, the difference is what?
I use my dogs for deer and feather and have trained them as gundogs and deer dogs at the same time ,it may surprise some people but dogs can tell the difference between a deer and a pheasant also a rifle and a shotgun.
A thread like this should be used to give the questionner a decent answer not to have a pop at an individual or a society.
 
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