Training timeline for hound puppy

Talk about Big Game Hunting with Dogs
Sinkingmoose
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Training timeline for hound puppy

Postby Sinkingmoose » Wed Oct 10, 2018 7:23 pm

I have been doing some reading on what everyone thinks is a general timeline for hunting a hound. There seems to be a large variance on where everyone starts their dogs. My first hound pup arrives mid November. This will give me all winter to take him out with us on bird hunting trips and let him run wild and get some exposure to the outdoors while the snakes are hopefully gone. With my drahthaars they are doing off leash "hunting" and controlled tracking scenarios beginning the day they come home at 8 weeks and hunting and having birds shot over them by six months. I am planning on just doing the same structured routine with this hound dog along with all the same obedience but instead of birds obviously using some gland scents to set up some tracking exercises a couple times a week and some dead game drags until he is about 5-6 months and I can do gunfire introduction. I think the only time I plan on showing him a caged coon a couple times is to introduce the gun. Not sure how else to do gunfire intro with a hound. We do it with rabbits and launched pigeons/quail for bird dogs. Then working him on coons and hopefully bobcats over the summer. That will put him at just over a year old next winter to get out to New Mexico for some quail and see if we cant chase some big game. How is everyone else doing gunfire introductions for these dogs?
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."
---Theodore Roosevelt
-Good Hunting, Kurt.
david
Babble Mouth
Babble Mouth
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Re: Training timeline for hound puppy

Postby david » Sun Oct 14, 2018 1:16 am

You can have a pup salivating and adrenal pumping at the sound of a gunshot simply by firing a gun at feeding time every day. Start out a good distance away from them. Then show up with the food. Gradually get closer after a few days. It won’t take them
long to get excited/come running at the sound of a gun. They can love the sound of a gun long before they should be introduced to dangerous game.

This is so simple and effective that gun shyness is just a darn shame because any puppy with any temperament can be conditioned to love the sound of a gun.

It can also be a very powerful way of calling your dog away from danger when they make the connection of “gun equals game” later on.

If you live in town you can start them out with a starting gun, cap gun/firecrackers or maybe even a loud recording of gunfire.

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