A real good friend of mine has two GSP 's about 5 yrs old brother and sister . These dogs are supposed to be from a good bloodline . He has never hunted with these dogs and they are not trained(sick em or come here ). He told me he would like to give them to somebody that will provide a good home and maybe some hunt time . Another friend of mine and myself were thinking about taking them and trying to train them and start hunting with them . We went to his house with some pheasant wings from a recent hunt . We hid the wings in bushes around the yard . When he turned the dogs loose ( for about an hour) they ran all over the yard and never payed any attention to the wings . So we showed them a wing and they tried to eat it . Then they slowly but surely started finding about half of them , but , when they did it was just to eat them . The dogs never acted " birdy " and they never went down and pointed or locked up . Like I was saying these dogs are 5 years old .Is this the sign of a poor hunting blood line ? Is there enough time to train and start trying to hunt with these dogs ? Are these dogs going to be the trouble and money ? Should I just go find a pup and start from scratch for a first time gun dog owner ?:?
Hi there. I think you need to go back to the beginning here, dogs of 5yrs old, new owners, new home, its a lot to take in for them. My advice would be to LIVE with the dogs for a couple weeks and get to know them first, teach them recall and gain their trust, then ONE at a time, take them out in an area where the Birds are, you may be VERY surprised how quick their instincts kick in. You will need to teach a retrieve aswell, that can be started at home, dont use a feather, use a gundog dummy, MUCH praise and encouragement will do a lot to help. Take things slowly. Dawn.
good advice and you hit on a few key points that I originally thought of...I think the most important thing is that the first few times, you need to take them out seperately, if they are together, they will play off of each other and if one would rather run and play, the other will feed off of that energy and decide to do what it wants to...if you start them off seperately, you will have their undivided attention and then slowly, once they are trained and you know how each of them acts seperately, you should be able to start putting them together...you just have to remember that each dog is different and have different personalities...it might take a little time but i think that instinct will eventually kick in
I see you are in oklahoma.I would suggest getting a better bloodline if a pointer doesnt point on instinct its not going to hunt.Agood bloodline is born pointing ant the training involves teaching them to hold point and honor another dog if they are field dogs they will range,so if you want them closer you also have to teach that. you could try those dogs on live birds and see if that makes a difference xxblxx
