One thing an inexperienced bird dog of any breed needs to learn is to follow a wounded bird and take it. Wounding a bird is, frankly, miserable, but it happens to every shot at some point, and then the bird has to be brought in as fast as possible so that you can dispatch it. That’s why our dogs need to learn to follow and grip a pricked (wounded) bird.
A bird that has been shot but can run off is called a “runner”. The dog then gets to follow the line – the trail where the bird has run – in order to chase the bird down.
Many young and inexperienced dogs seem to find it a little scary at first, but my experience is that after that initial uncertainty they go on to love the task. Tassla is an absolutely outstanding gundog in those situations – she follows and doesn’t give up. If she has to, she jumps quite high and takes the bird in the air… But the first time she was very hesitant and I had to encourage her.
Ahead of the young dog derby last autumn we were shooting for Flippa and ended up in a situation where we got a runner.
She did an impressive piece of work on a bird she couldn’t mark visually – she was sitting in a bush and the bird was shot some way off on a track; it came down but then ran. I sent her on a blind, and when she got to the fall I blew a little hunt whistle to have her hunt close. She took the line immediately, but she must have had second thoughts, because she came back after a short loop to investigate the fall again. That, I think, is typical of an inexperienced dog – they want to double-check exactly where the scent trail starts. I blew the stop and cast her to the left.
Woohoo, how nicely she took it! She ran straight and cleanly to the left and picked up the line again. Between the trees I could see how nicely and confidently she ran on – a long way. Then she disappeared out of sight and hearing for a while. The bird had got a bit too far ahead, so at some point she must have become uncertain as the distance to me grew too great, and she came back. We sent an experienced dog to bring the pricked bird in instead. Flippa hadn’t even been anywhere near a situation like that before – she’d only been shot for a couple of times – so it was a little too difficult. Before long she’ll probably be like Tassla. 😉
I’m very pleased with how well she took my signals and how she solved the situation initially. We got it on film:
Some things can’t be trained any other way than by the dog gaining experience of them while you’re out hunting. This is a typical example. The next time Flippa got to fetch a pricked bird was a few months later, and the situation wasn’t nearly as hard – she only had to follow the line a few metres. She took it straight away, but then made the mistake of dropping it a few metres before reaching me (something we’ve struggled with a little over the autumn). She discovered that this was a huge mistake, though, because the bird ran off… She grabbed it again like lightning and then came all the way in. Since then she hasn’t dropped any birds before the delivery, so I hope she’s learned something that will stick. 🙂
