Fall Hunt Test

emily · Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 1:29 pm Post subject: Fall Hunt Test

I just got off the phone with one of the members of the weim club that I'm joining. They plan on having a hunt test this fall. She went through it all with me and answered all my questions. It sounds like a lot of fun. I'm so excited I can't wait! She said that she didn't do hardly any training with her dogs to begin with. So I may just do some training myself. The dog park has a really huge field in it. So one day I might go real early in the morning and plant a bird scented object and see what he does. Can you tell I'm excited! Very Happy

piper22705 · Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 1:44 pm Post subject: Re: Fall Hunt Test

That sounds great emily! I would love to get piper involved with that as well. Maybe an early morning at the sheepfold? I requested information from yankee weimaraner club to join up. I found a ton of books on how to train for tracking , videos too. just not sure which one to buy. I wonder if comes natural to them and not alot of training is needed?

Kyle

emily · Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 1:54 pm Post subject: Re: Fall Hunt Test

She said that some it comes really naturally to and others it takes some time to mature. But that it's really good to expose them to it when they're young. I have noticed that Scout air scents a lot more than he used to. So I think part of it could be helped with training, but that a lot of it is natural ability. Are Pipers parents hunters?

And yeah, definitely. Maybe a real early morning at sheepsfold. Like 7am or something when hopefully there aren't any other people there. The only downside is that we wouldn't be able to fire a blank from a gun(if their were any people there I wouldn't want to scare them or get in trouble)...I'd love to get some real game to try out, but I'm not sure the reservation people would be so keen on that. Unless we play dumb and pretend that we have no idea where the game came from. But again, i wouldn't want to chance getting in trouble....

Any idea where I could get some bird stink to spray on some objects? And what kind of objects are good to use. I'm hesitant to use stuffies cause he'll think that they belong in his mouth. And once sprayed, should I drag them or not. From what I understand the birds are dizzied and placed in parts throughout the course. So in the real thing they wouldn't be dragged...

anne · Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 3:04 pm Post subject: Re: Fall Hunt Test

You can buy scent at places like Cabelas. www.cabelas.com. Personally I see no use in using scented objects, it just isn't even near the same.

Try using pigeons at first instead of game birds. They are cheaper and have a strong scent.

Also does this park you guys are going to have cover?

Do not drag, you are going to encourage your dog to ground scent. Dogs with a lot of style run with their head up, air scenting. There's nothing wrong with a dog that has its head down, but it just doesn't look as flashy and you do want to teach your dog to air scent anyway.

If you want to drag, this should be for tracking cripples and usually you want blood scent because the dog should know to track and retrieve cripples even if alive, but should point live game.

Be careful about introducing gunfire.... If you can find some pigeons I would encourage you to either tether it or pull flight feathers. What you want right now is for your dog to not be afraid of birds. Let him get crazy over them. You want them to chase, and when your dog is crazy chasing, THEN fire.

Even though it's true that there is not much training needed for a Junior Hunter title, they will hear blanks and no matter what you do, you do not want your dog to be gunshy.

Novel · Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 8:04 am Post subject: Re: Fall Hunt Test

Excellent Advice! Topper and I are just about ready for our first JH run, but conformation shows keep getting in the way. Hopefully second week in Sept we'll finally be able to nail one down.
Thanks again...
If you could narrate a run through of a hunt test, that would be awesome!

anne · Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 11:12 am Post subject: Re: Fall Hunt Test

Great, glad you are getting Topper out there. The Southland club is having a hunt test in November and I can't wait to see what the Hudson kids out here do.

So run thru of a hunt test? Um... well your dog will be braced with another one. There will be 2 judges on horseback that will follow the dogs. They are "graded" 1-10 on a number of categories like pointing, cooperation, etc. You have to have at least a 7 in all categories to pass. If you pass you get 1 leg. For JH you need 4 legs in order to get the title. So you aren't competing against the other dogs, you are competing against a standard. In JH they are mostly looking at "natural ability" in other words the dogs don't have to have much manners.

You as a handler just need to follow the course and if your dog has bird contact, flush and blank the bird. I would suggest you walk at a brisk pace to keep your dog pushing forward.

I'm probably forgetting some key things. Oh... make sure have an article of blaze orange. And have fun!

emily · Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 2:13 pm Post subject: Re: Fall Hunt Test

The way the girl explained the JH test, was that they set up the course with some dizzied birds(who'll sleep for about 10 minutes). Your dog is sent out with another dog and they are released from the leash a good distance from the course. This allows the judges to see whether your dog shows any agression and it helps the dogs get used to one another before they enter the course. They enter the course and they are supposed to find a bird and point at it. She said that the dog would not receive a good score if they charge the bird or take it in it's mouth and kill it. Your dog is supposed to stay while you flush and shoot a blank, but that if the dog runs off it's not too serious because like Anne said they aren't looking too much at total control, but mostly natural ability. Good to know about the orange article of clothing. I can't wait to find out the actual date!!!!

heathr · Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 4:19 pm Post subject: Re: Fall Hunt Test

Emily,
i am sure you have read on some of the other threads... Rk and myself are newbie weim owners and to field/ hunt trials... we went and watched our first last weekend and learned so so much... not to mention met some really great people that have top dogs in the comps.
we go out every thursday to practice, our pups are still too young to compete Sad

but one thing that our trainer told us when intro'ing your dogs to birds is to make sure the every experience is positive... basically when we go out we plant pigeons with signs tied to their feet so they can't fly very far and then we take the pup's out and let them get out in front of us and look for them... they can't smell them if they are not down wind from them... helpful pointer (believe me there have been a few times we have been up wind) Riddick is pretty good about finding the birds and just going up to them without flushing or touching the birds, Schroeder loves the birds and tries to eat them... it was so funny last time he caught one and had feathers hanging out of his mouth (we were laughing so hard).
We intro'ed Ridd to gun fire by taking him to our local gun club and leaving him in the car, that way he could hear the gun fire but wasn't close enough in case he didn't like it... he was ok with that so we took him to the woods and went target shooting, he sat right by my boyfriends leg and was very attentive... he doesn't seem to be gunshy, but plenty of dogs are... my grandparent are avid hunters and bought a weim that was supposed to be this great hunter and the first time they fired a shot the dog took off and hid under the truck Embarassed

Best of luck I am sure you will love it... I am hooked and even if Ridd doesn't turn out to be a great hunter I am sure I will stay interested... besides when we drive up to where we practice he starts getting really excited and knows its time to go out and look for birds, so I know he has a great time... if nothing else it is wonderful exercise.

anne · Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 6:05 pm Post subject: Re: Fall Hunt Test

<<She said that the dog would not receive a good score if they charge the bird or take it in it's mouth and kill it. Your dog is supposed to stay while you flush and shoot a blank,>>

A JH dog can scoop birds or kill them as long as they have shown that they do point one bird. So they don't need to do that every single time. I would never expect a JH level dog to be steady (ie, stay while you flush and shoot)! That is for more advanced dogs and most of steadiness training starts when the dog is older and mentally capable of that type of pressure. Even a SH dog would be allowed to break on shot.

Birds aren't planted close to the start line, not for the reason you were given, although that might be part of the reason. But if I were judging a hunt test, I wouldn't want that becuase the dog would get bird contact too early. THe problem with Weims in general is their desire, and you woudln't be able to judge desire if they got bird contact early because then of course thye are going to be all crazy after that. A dog that will hunt without getting bird contact right away is the dog that has more desire.

Gunshyness is almost always caused by poor introduction to gunfire. You can't really expect a young dog to hear a 12 or 20 guage shotgun for the first time and not be afraid. Good way to cause a dog to fear birds too.

Good tip about working your dog downwind. Sometimes it's hard for me to remember the key things like that becuase that stuff becomes second nature.

heathr · Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 6:21 pm Post subject: Re: Fall Hunt Test

I thought that the note about downwind seemed kind of obvious but for myself as a beginner and non hunter it is not something that is automatic but very very important. Another thing that has really helped is working in a group, because in comp. they are run in braces so get your pup use to working out there with other dogs... at first they play and chase but soon when they realize what is out there (BIRDS!!!) they will be more excited to look for birds than play with each other. Other than that keep it fun... keep it positive, and get them excited to be out there and soon they will look forward to getting out there and looking for birds

emily · Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 6:39 pm Post subject: Re: Fall Hunt Test

Thanks everyone for your wonderful advice!!!! And the more I think about it, it's probably a good thing to see if we can find a local trainer and go a few times. The hunt test person is supposed to get in touch with me from the weim club, so I'm sure that she'll help me find something. And my breeder has been out of the country since I started thinking about this and won't be back until just before I have to leave. But she'll probably also have some help for me.

RK · Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2005 12:33 am Post subject: Re: Fall Hunt Test

emily, the breeder heather, erin, and i have been working with highly recommended a video called "perfect start" (i believe—again, so terrible with names! hopefully heather or erin will pipe in if i got that wrong) that she said details every little thing in terms of starting your dog out on the hunt for trials. you might want to try to get your hands on that.

emily · Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2005 6:10 am Post subject: Re: Fall Hunt Test

Thanks RK. I'll see if I can find a copy! On Sundays there is this channel (OLN-outdoor life network????)that shows all hunting programming. I found it just last Sunday and watched for a few hours! It was pretty fascinating!

DucksWild · Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2005 10:16 am Post subject: Re: Fall Hunt Test

Found that video at gundogsupply.com:

http://www.gundogsupply.com/gundog/perstarbirdo.html

You can choose VHS or DVD.