Live birds create an excitement in gun dogs that simply cant be matched with dummies. Homer was no different, at 18 weeks he was doing exceptional in the yard with dummies. I trapped some pigeons for live training and MAN the wheels came off. On the first few birds, he broke, chased the birds, ignored the whistle, and left me screaming my head off. It took about half a dozen live birds and LOTS of correcting to get him to sit on flush with the whistle. Both Water Dog and Game dog have great sections on introducing your dog to live birds.
Getting Homer to stop breaking at the sound of the gun on a live bird was a monumental achievement. Gun dog training, with live birds when the dog is young will help avoid huge disasters and tons of screaming on his first hunt. If you wait until your first LIVE hunt to introduce your dog to live birds I guarantee the results will be disaster. Getting live pigeons can sometimes be a real pain. If anyone reading this sells pigeons for hunting dog training PLEASE,PLEASE leave a comment with your contact information. I’m sure we’ll get some birds from you.
Joe Dynarski.