pups first hunt

[mjtbackcountry]

I went to the woods today with my  7 month old pup to do a little grouse hunting. we hadnt seen any grouse all morning so i decided to stop at a pit and shoot my shotgun while training my dog with his dummie some more. The hole time he would sit and stay like normally and then go after his dummie after i shot but he wouldnt bring it back to me hed just whine and go sit by the truck like he was scared of the shot( ive shot around him before and had no problems) So after this had went on for about six shots i was getting a little frustrated and decided i had enough. Driving off a little disappointed as i know hes really good with commands, around the next corner there stands two grouse!!! so i put on the breaks and look through my binos an he starts to whine. He has flushed grouse before numerous times this year before season opened so i think he had an idea what was going on? we get out of the truck as they fly, i drop one and it goes into the under brush. Tripp my pup goes in after it and retrieves bringing it back to hand looking at me  like it was no big deal!!!! a little bitter sweet as i was frustrated with him minutes before, Thought id share since that was his first retrieve!!!  Now the waterfowl question for his first hunt, Im hunting with four other buddies and one other dog. Should i split up from the group since it will be his first hunt and take one guy with me so i have more time for one on one do to there being five guns and another dog if we hunt together? suggetions?

[preacherman]

I have trained a few bird dogs, and they always perform a bit different with other dogs around. Not always bad but different.

That being said get the two dogs together, before you hunt, see how they act together. Play fetch with the two of them, do your drills etc. I have seen pups that were just too distracted by other dogs. My current dog is sort of competitive, and I hunted her with a buddies 100+ lb. lab her first season and she had an if he can do it I can attitude. Now it really doesn't matter if there are other dogs once the first shot is fired nothing else matters to her.

It will depend on their personalities and such, but usually once they realize what they game is nothing else matters.

BTW don't put her out on geese until she is really into the ducks. A buddy had a pup that he sent out on a wounded Canadian goose, that goose stuck the dog hard enough to draw blood, and the dog hasn't retrieved a bird since. Sometime wounded geese get nasty with the dog.

[BIGINNER]

she probably reacted bad over the first shots because she was retriving a dummy. i usually stick with shooting over pups only if there is an actual bird involved. (makes it alot more pleasant for the pup)   as for hunting with another dog,.. like preacherman said, get the dogs together before the hunt see how they interact.