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No. Dak. Pheasant hunt-dogs first


fishroger

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Was my pups first hunt. He is 8 months. Had been training with pheasant wings. He picked up the bird scent like a pro. First morning he picked up the scent 200' from the farmhouse and flushed a big rooster and I connected. Bird landed in weeds. Would have never found it if the dog wasnt there. He went right to it and mouthed it but didnt pick it up, he put his paw on it until I got there. My friend then came out and we worked a shelterbelt nearby and flushed a rooster and winged it, dog ran to it but bird got up and ran with the dog in hot pursuit into the grass in the shelterbelt. We thought we had it , but the dog continue to run another 200 yards down the shelterbelt with us dumb humans yelling at it. We thought the bird was near us. Turns out my dog was chasing the pheasant. I ran down to where is was ready to yell at him but he was concentrating on a spot with his paws firmly on top of something. Turns out it was the bird pinned down by the dog. I grabbed it and was immediately spurred by the bird (ouch) and the dog gave me a look like "I told you so". Young pup did good for first time, some of my friends got a little frustrated because he would sometimes get overly excited and pick up a scent and flush birds 100 yds out. He was like a kid in a candy store for the first time. Hes a real trooper. The switch grass and stublle beat him up pretty good, but he will recover. Next week were going out to So. Dak. for some more.

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Thats pretty sweet. My 5 month old lab has been making water retrieves on ducks for 2 weeks now, and now we will be going out to ND for Duck and Pheasant.

He gets to follow my 10 year old lab around. Hoping a little will rub off on him. I went out with both of them around here and he did well. Coming when i called , and staying close. DId his own looking not always following the older dog.

I havent used any Pheasant scent yet though, so he will get some good learnin' this weekend.

Im pretty excited.

Hope he will give me half what your dog has done, Good Job on training him, Always makes daddy feel proud to see them do what they are supposed to at such a young age.

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I cant believe how much our experiences mirror each other, which I guess makes sense being the pups are littermates. My dog does the exact same things as yours. We hunted hard both Monday and Tuesday and came away with 3 roosters and she has the same issues as your pup. I can immediatley tell when she has a scent because mine starts chomping her jaws together like she is trying to eat the scent and yes, if it is a hot trail she takes off running and up flys the bird 100 yards out, when the bird isnt a runner, then she works very very close. She too runs to the bird and pins it down, she tries to pick it up and ends up with a mouth full of feathers and spits it out. I have found that if I run away from her, she wont leave the bird behind and will pick it up and run after me, and i grab it. I have been putting the bird in her mouth, telling her to hold and then petting her telling her how good she is, I have also been skinning the birds and letting her carry around the pheasant skin and play with it in the yard. She is getting there and I keep telling myself shes only 8 months.

A word of caution, as I said she gets on a scent and goes and when a bird flies she likes to chase it and although I feel she is very well trained and knows her commands great, when there is a scent or a flushing bird, she hears nothing. Commands dont even register with her. Tuesday she flushed a hen and it flew across a highway and yep, she took off over the highway after that bird, scared me to death and as loud as I yelled she didnt listen. I have decided I need to get a shock collar because of this, to reenforce the commands she knows when a bird isnt present. I wont lose her to a car. Great dogs so far though.

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Hey purple. Nice to hear from you. Yes Willy is sort of hard headed when he is locked on a scent. Got an e-collar on him. Got to be careful what you zap them for. Been working on commands with the e-collar. Dont want to give him a zap for chasin birds. Goin to so. dak. this sunday. Hope he does well there , will update when I get back. Good luck with your dog.

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Fishroger & Mnpurple. Glad to here your dogs are doing so well. I had Ozzie(litermate) up to Sask. last week for ducks and he really did well. These dogs sure have a desire to hunt and lots of natural ability. He retrieved all of our ducks, cripples and diving cripples, for my son and I. He also didn't listen once he knew there was a duck to be found.Just to excited. I can't wait to get him out pheasant hunting. Don't you feel lucky that you got one of the Bushwackers pups. They are really nice dogs. Good Hunting DrJ.

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hey guys , ,i'm pretty sure i have a littermate to all your pups and was just wondering if any of them has shown any pointing yet .i just got back from the iowa pheasant opener and he did flash point for a quick second on one that held real tight . but yea so far i'm pretty pleased with how he' s turning out . maybe some day we should all get together for a bushwacker pup hunt smile.gif

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I think there is some pointing in Wren, just not at anything I would shoot so far. A couple weeks ago we were in a marshy area and had flushed a couple of phesants when she hit this dense patch of grass and ompletely locked up, paw was even in the air. I crept closer and told her to get it and she pounced and went after a frog. She pointed that frog just great! Once in a while though she will just freeze, with her paw in the air and her nose up trying to smell something and then after a few seconds goes on her way again. Maybe as she gets to see more birds this trait will come out more.

Unfortunately for her, pheasants have taken a back seat now as the rut is getting in gear.

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Just got back from So. Dak. Willy is really improving. He stays closer and watchs the bird to see if we knock it down and then he's on it if we do. Only lost one bird in the long grass. He did point at what looked like a a roosting site in the grass with pheasant poop in it. This dog doesnt quit even when hes dead tired with a bloody nose. Was somewhat disaapointed with So. Dak. If you dont have private land to hunt it can be very hard. The public land if very heavily pounded. We did hunt a some private land of a friend of a friend. It was impressive. In a 3 acre patch of corn we flushed about 50 birds. There is acres of corn still unharvested in So. dak. which is a problem. Its impossible to ask private landowners to hunt for free. Seems like everybody and anybody that has habitat is charging. We were offered a limit of birds for $100/day, guaranteed. Quite different then No. Dak. where we could readily ask farmers to hunt their land for free and they were friendly about it. Going to try some grouse huntin with Willy. Hes dead tired and sleepin it off, should be good in a day or so.

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Glad to hear all you guys are getting your little guys out hunting already. Just remember how young these pups still are and have fun with them this season. I think back to my first season with Libby how fun all the "firsts" were, but looking at the difference in Libby from 6 months to now you guys are in for a treat in the upcoming seasons grin.gif Let's get some pics coming guys! Always great to see how these guys are growing. Its fun to see who are the Libby clones, who are Rebel clones, and who are the combos of both. Have a safe and fun rest of the rookie season.

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Bushwacker. Here's Ozzie with his first duck, that he retrieved in Sask. We drove out west to try for some huns. That night, while making dinner, he grabbed a hun off of the top of his kennel and brought it into the kitchen and sat down. Didn't even have to pose him for that one, he was just happy to sit and hold it. So which parent does he look like? Thanks again, Dr J.

OzzieCanada002.jpg

OzzieCanada004.jpg

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I like reading and hearing stories about other pups from this litter and their first hunts.

My Daisy is a pup from this litter too. She had a fantastic first hunt as well. I was a little concerned because she is my first hunting dog that I have owned or attempted to train. Judging by how she did I don't think I could have screwed her up if I tried.

Unfortunately where we hunted we had to deal with a lot of sunflowers giving the birds plenty of cover so we had to work pretty hard all weekend for the birds we got and it took us 3 walks before we got her on her first rooster. She seemed to be confused or disappointed on the first two dry runs, but she kicked up a couple hens right away on the 3rd walk and things seemed to "click" for her. She flushed her first rooster shortly after and she nearly snagged it out of the air as it flew. I'm ashamed to say I flat out missed the rooster because I was too busy enjoying watching the pup. Thankfully, another guy in the party shot it and like the others who posted earlier she ran to the bird pounced on it and waited for me to come get it.

She was pretty much a bird finding machine for the remainder of the hunt. She flushed several roosters, located a handful of downed birds and ran down a few winged birds as well. She has no mercy on those runners!

I was also afraid of her not obeying commands in the field so I did grab an e-collar just in case she needed correction. We worked hard on obedience all summer but she did have a few rough edges that needed to be refined and we hadn't worked on ranging distance or had much success recalling her when she was excited. Long story short - I think I only had to correct her 3 times all weekend! The first hen I let her chase until she stopped chasing and turned back and I gave her the come command and a short blast on the collar when she didn't respond. The second hen I gave her the no-bird command as it got up and she chased for about 50 yards or so and I repeated the same correction procedure. She then kinda seemed to associate the gunshot and birds together and by the end of day 2 she wouldn't even chase the bird unless we had shot at it. She would flush a hen watch it fly until she couldn't see it anymore and then turn and look at me like to say "What the heck was wrong with that one?" She still hadn't made a retrieve for me at this point however.

Day 3 she was able to put it all together and she was an absolute dream to hunt with. She listened to every command myself and the other guys in our party gave her. She sat down in middle of chasing scent if we asked, slowed down when she was told, returned to heel while walking through plowed parts of the field and jumped in every thicket we asked her too. It was amazing. We came to the end of a push where she was on scent nearly the entire walk but never kicked anything up until about 30 yards left in the push. about 20 hens flushed before she kicked up a rooster I shot and winged it and she was off to the races and chased it down around the back of a giant brush pile, I couldn't see her at that point, but I figured she probably caught it and was waiting for me to come and get it. I didn't take more than 10 steps before Daisy came blasting out of that big pile of brush carrying her bird every step of the way back to my hand. Needless to say she was pretty popular following that walk and I told the guys that I wasn't sure what made me prouder; watching my dog bring back that bird, or watching my 10 month old daughter take her first steps.

I took it pretty easy on her the rest of the way as Daisy's feet were sore by this point and even though I know she would do whatever I asked I didn't want to push her in her first hunt so I only took her on a couple more walks and made another retrieve on her only opportunity.

No one in the party could believe she is only 8 months old. I've only hunted over about 4 different dogs myself, but a couple of the guys said she was one of the better dogs they've ever hunted over. Needless to say, I'm more than satisfied with her results to this point - and to think she is only going to get better!

Thanks for the great pup Bushwacker! I will get you some pics shortly - unfortunately I didn't have a camera in the field to document her first "steps".

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Thanks for the updates guys. Dr J, Ozzie is a great looking pup. I think he looks a lot like his dad, Rebel.

Rebel_duck.jpg

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These dogs are natural hunters. Nice to here that the littermates are the same. They get better with experience. Willys second hunt was much better, much more under control. These dogs have excellent noses, they can track down birds. We only lost one runner in so. dak. , but willy chased it for a good 1/4 mi thru the grass until he lost it. Will go after the ruffies next week to see how he does, hes ready to go now . Good luck with Daisy and good huntin.

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Thanks for the good words on the pups.

If you guys are ever in the SW suburbs and want to see Rebel let me know and one of his offspring from the first litter betwen Rebel & Libby. Rocky is a white lab and will be 2 this spring. He is a pheasant hunting machine. He isn't pointing as much as his Dad though. Great temperment and unbelievable with the kids.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just curious if any of your pups bounce when pheasant hunting? Wren does the damndest thing. Its obvious when she is on a scent as her intensity level goes ski high, but when the scent gets really hot she comes bursting from the grass and starts bouncing looking for the bird. She lands and begins to scent again then starts to bounce. She literally tucks her front legs under her chest and bounces at least 4 feet off the ground, straight up. Craziest thing. She doesnt do any pointing but when the bouncing starts I know a bird usually soon to flush. If I'd put a cape on her, she would look just like superman. Any of your pups do this?

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I think Wren got that trait fom Rebel. Rebel bounces like a kangaroo but not when he is hunting. He most frequently does it when it his out on our deck and wants to come in. When he jumps straight up his legs must be close to 3 feet off the ground. Its very funny to watch. Never seen another dog do that before.

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Willy is a good jumper too. When in tall grass he jumps to see where we are. He would probably be a good dock jumper if I trained him for that. He loves the water

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  • 4 months later...

This year's litter just arrived. Expecting big things out of these little guys!!!

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