Training with live birds?

[Duckslayer89]

Any opinions on it or ideas? I would like to train with live birds but want to do it humanely somehow

[GWP]

Presuming you are talking about a hunting dog here? Part of dog training you can, part of it you cant.
Pretty much the choices, and they all have their uses, is dizzy them, free run them, or cage them. The cages are pretty much a crab pot bait cage, unless you are using a remote release trap, but that is another story.
There is a lot of training that needs to be done before a dog gets on a bird though. If you are training a ‘hunting’ dog, at some point you will need to kill birds.

[Colin]

What kind of training are you intending to do? Upland? Waterfowl? Both?

Need more info as there are options depending on what you need for different game birds and pigeons.

I use live birds all the time but what I'm training may not be what you are after.

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[Duckslayer89]

Ya I’m going to be training him for waterfowl and some upland. I’m just wondering how you start off usually and what age? He’s 8 weeks old now

[Colin]

I'd say if your breeder did not already expose them to this it won't hurt you to let your pup chase a pigeon or shackled duck (cover the beak) but it's also not a make it or break it for retrieving aspects. Just don't let bad habits start that you will need to fix later.

The best retrieving resource for a dog (waterfowl) at this age is Bill Hillman's DVD, Training a Retriever Puppy. If you have a versatile breed this may not be the if your intention is to get your dog to pt in the upland.

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[Colin]

If you want to bring your pup to the Whistling Wings HRC Training day on March 14th I'll bring a few pigeons for the club to use for puppies.

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[Duckslayer89]

That would be cool where is that at?

[Colin]

Monroe, address is on the Website: https://www.whistlingwingshrc.com/

You'll need to sign up online cause they are making a good attempt to be semi covid friendly here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/904054ba5a82ca0ff2-whistling

First time is free so just come out and sign up for the Puppy training and then float around and talk to bunch of folks about dog training. If you ask for me I can point you in the right direction of folks to talk to as well as answer questions but I'll be floating around  a lot as well as running a few of my dogs.

[Birdguy]

We could come up with a pigeon or two and or a coturnix quail or two across the Narrows bridge. Will have LOTS later this summer (quail, chukar, pheasants).