Hunting Dogs

    It’s the night before opening day of hunting season. Visions of his dog’s staunch points, stylish backs and impeccable field manners dance through the pointing-dog owner’s head. For the retriever enthusiast, it is the anticipation of the exceptional marks and memorable retrieves that keep him awake with excitement. Bird-dog owners long endure the off-season blues, but they do so with the hope that everything will be OK on Game Day.
    Unfortunately, Murphy’s Law has a way of spoiling the best-laid plans. The reality of wandering through the woods hoping to catch a glimpse of a dog that chased a deer or rabbit is a harsh awakening. Instead of receiving a grouse gently delivered by a soft muzzle, the owner may find himself pulling porcupine quails from the dog’s mouth. Opening day can humble even the most forgiving dog owner. Dogs can become unraveled, blowing out birds far beyond gun range; they can exhibit hardmouth, making game unfit for the table; they can become “sticky,” refusing to leave the owner’s side; or they can refuse to retrieve, leaving the owner to recover his own game.
    The fact is that practice is required to make the dreams for Game Day into reality. A sports team doesn’t suit up for the opener without investing weeks of practice, finely honing necessary skills and developing a game plan—including what to do if all does not go well.
    In the field, situations pop up that are difficult to duplicate during training. For example, it’s not realistic for most owners to expose their dogs to the flush of a hundred cackling pheasants before they head to Kansas. The first time the dog encounters this, it may come unglued. It’s possible that such an eruption of birds may frighten the dog, particularly if the flush is followed by the sound of several autoloaders emptying. As a result, the dog may shut down and become less aggressive in searching for game.
    A pre-season plan should include both appropriate training and a strategy for dealing with unwanted behaviors that may occur in the field. Hope is not a strategy.
    Certain foundational rules of dog behavior and training must be understood and practiced to develop a sound pre-hunt plan. At the top of the list is that a dog must not be punished if it does not understand why it is being punished. This is much more than a matter of fairness. A dog learns by association, and if a trainer does not guarantee that the dog forms the intended association of cause (the undesirable behavior) and effect (the punishment), the dog may make an unintended association that is difficult to remedy.
    Undoing the learned behavior of an unintended association is much more difficult than learning the behavior in the first place. The more negative or positive the effect perceived by the dog, the fewer repetitions will be required to imprint an association on the dog. Perhaps the dog did not hold point and began creeping or actually took out the bird, and the handler administered punishment. If the dog fully understood that the punishment was for taking steps, it would have learned from the correction. But if the dog made the association that the bird was somehow the cause of the punishment, then it may begin blinking birds or avoiding them altogether. The same problems can develop with retrieving if punishment is meted out without the dog correctly associating the cause and effect. Be very careful before administering punishment in training tasks, and try to break tasks into small increments to better ensure that the dog makes the intended associations.
    If the dog has not learned in training to hunt in control, handle birds with proper manners and retrieve acceptably, it is a mistake to think the dog will perform admirably on Game Day. The proper procedure is to train the dog first before expecting success in the real world of hunting. If the dog is corrected in the field while hunting, it may decide that it is not worth the effort and quit altogether. Hunting outings are supposed to be fun rewards for the dog and not escalate into tests of how much punishment it can endure. By the same token, if a dog is allowed to run out of control, break point, ignore backs, chase birds, chew on downed birds and display other unacceptable behaviors in the field, these behaviors will be much more difficult to extinguish in the future. Proper behavior should be taught in yard training and the training fields prior to expecting compliance during the hunt.
    A second rule of dog training is that commands must be “generalized.” What this means is that once a dog has learned to respond to a command in the yard, it must be brought to numerous other areas to learn that the rule applies everywhere. The dog must respond to the recall command, the command “Whoa” for pointing breeds and the command “Sit” or “Hup” for retrievers and flushers whenever and wherever the command is given. If the dog will not recall when running in the field with no birds, there is zero chance the dog will respond when its adrenaline is pumping in a bird-rich hunting area. Commands are proofed and reinforced on the hunt only after everything has been taught and trained for prior to the season.
    The idea of taking an untrained dog into the hunting fray “for experience” is a mistake. The dog should be properly introduced to birds and the sound of gunfire before subjecting it to such things in the hunting environment. Placing an inexperienced dog into the uncontrolled world of the flush and shotgun report is a mistake, and too many problems can be created.
    It’s a huge mistake to introduce a dog to e-collar stimulation for the first time on a hunt. It is folly not to properly introduce the dog to stimulation in the controlled environment of yard training. Without first introducing the dog to the e-collar in the yard and then generalizing in a number of different places, there is a high risk that the dog either will not hunt while wearing the collar or will not hunt even if the collar is removed.
    Another potential problem of incorrectly introducing a dog to stimulation is that the dog may become “case hardened.” A case-hardened dog requires more and more punishment and never becomes reliable. Break down a training task until you know the dog knows the proper response; the dog should know how to turn off stimulation and not have to guess at a solution. The e-collar is effective for generalizing the dog in the hunting field and offering precise and effective timing, and, used with knowledge, it is a superior aid in avoidance training. In avoidance training the dog learns that by offering the appropriate response it avoids a negative.
    Once the dog has been properly conditioned to the e-collar and avoidance training, many of the problems that arise on Game Day can be quickly solved. This is important in order that the dog does not run deer, regress to self-hunting, and learn that it does not have to respond to the owner’s commands every time regardless of the situation. Prepare yourself and your dog with proper training before the season, and you can expect blue-ribbon performance on the hunt.

    For more training articles or information on the George Hickox School of Dog Training, visit www.georgehickox.com.