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Pointing Dog Training

Home: Training & Activities: Pointing Dog Training
Page Updated December 28, 2002

Topics included in this section:
* Video of puppy pointing his first bird
* How to get started if you've never hunted with dogs before
* Gun Training
* Scent Training/Retrieval Training
* How To Hunt With A Brittany Spaniel
* Electronic Collars
* Quartering
* What To Do About Gun-Shyness
* Hunting Links

   Training your Brittany Spaniel for hunting requires that your dog learn basic obedience. "Come (or here), whoa, heel, good" and "no" are all commands you will use to train your dog to be a good gun dog.

   Don't expect your 10 week old puppy to be ready to be field trial champion. Puppies have a short attention span so make the best use of it by keeping them busy playing your training games. The best advice we can give is to praise your puppy when they are doing good, scold them when they are not and be consistent about both.

  Also remember that it's not safe to exercise your growing puppy to the same extent as an adult dog. Over exercising a puppy can lead to future joint problems.  Click here for more information on safe exercise.

Huntersheart Shoots He Scores, "Bastian", pointed his first bird at the age of 14 weeks.

Click here for a Real Video movie of Bastian pointing. (2.3 MB)

You'll need Real Video player installed on your computer to play the movie. You can download the player for free at www.real.com. Or click here to view the Windows Media version instead (3.7 MB)

 Bastian was introduced to penned birds at age 8 weeks as part of our socialization process. (From about 4 weeks we also formed a positive association by firing the cap gun at meals and before various rewards.) At 14 weeks, he was enrolled in puppy kindergarten where owners Danny & Amanda Vriend worked on basic obedience including the recall off leash. We planted a live chukar partridge in a bird bag at a fence line.  Instinctively, he is independently moving to the fence line to search for birds. He instinctively offers a flash point to indicate the bird's position. Future pointing training would teach him to hold steady on the point while the bird is flushed and shot and his handler sends him to either retrieve the downed bird, or to track it if it's wounded.

Question: I’m interested in hunting with my dog; but I've never hunted with a pointing dog before. How do I learn how to train my Brittany for hunting?

Answer: There are many email discussion lists, books, and videos about training dogs to hunt; but I suspect there's no substitute for knowledgeable people you can work with and learn from.

  When we receive enquiries about how to train dogs to hunt, we usually direct people to NAVHDA; http://www.navhda.org/. The North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association has local chapters in many areas of Canada and the U.S.A. Visit http://www.navhda.org/chapters.html for a list. We are members, but so far the chapter in our city (Calgary, Alberta) is just getting started. In addition to hunting performance tests, most NAVHDA chapters teach people how to prepare for these competitions, train together and put on seminars about pointing dog training, etc..

  The American Kennel Club http://www.akc.org/index.cfm , Canadian Kennel Club http://www.ckc.ca/ , American Field http://www.americanfield.com , and many local clubs offer hunting tests and field trials.

  Ideally, the breeder you bought your dog from should be able to recommend trainers or dog-related resources they find helpful. Another place to start is the breed club for the type of dog you have. For example, we're members of the Washington Brittany Club and it's parent; the American Brittany Club http://clubs.akc.org/brit/. In all of these cases, we suggest going out to events to watch at first. Once you find a club you're interested in, contact them and find out what they have to offer. Once you start attending club functions, you'll probably meet other people with similar interests to yours. If you're a beginner, maybe an experienced person will take you under their wing. You can get together with club members to train or compete, or pass on information e.g. any seminars or workshops being offered in your local area.

  Canadians are required to apply for a Possession and Acquisition License (PAL) or Possession Only License (POL) to own a gun and buy ammunition.  So if you’re new to hunting, you could look in the yellow pages for a Firearms Safety Course in your area. In Canada, to obtain a hunting license, you must also pass a Hunter’s Safety course. Places (like Canadian Tire or sporting goods stores) that offer hunting licenses should also offer copies of the local hunting regulations. If you live in the U.S.A. or another country, we’d suggest asking at your local sporting goods store what the requirements are for obtaining a hunting license.

  If you happen to offer the service of training pointing dogs or are a member of a club related to hunting dogs or Brittany Spaniels, we will consider advertising your services for free on our website. Or if you know of a good hunting website, please do suggest it to us so we can consider adding a link at: http://www.huntersheart.com/links.html (We try our best to screen the suggestions for relevance and quality, but can't thoroughly examine all of the people or organizations. So we recommend that readers use their discretion, to do further research, and to choose only the service/ site / ideas they think are suitable for them and their individual dog.)

  We're sorry we can’t be of more help offering resources in your local area. Hopefully, you might find some of the above organizations useful in getting started.

   There are quite a few things you can do to get your puppy off to a good start. One important lesson is associating a gun shot with you and food. Just before feeding your puppy, fire a cap gun. (They are available for a reasonable price from Wal-mart.)  This accomplishes two things. The first is your dog won't be afraid of a gun and second if they ever get lost, firing a gun is a way to have them come back. You can begin this training right when you get the puppy, continuing where we (the breeders) left off.

   A couple of retrieval dummies used as toys for your puppies are the tools used to train your dogs in scent recognition. Write the scent you are going to put on each dummy with a permanent marker. You can purchase scents like pheasant and grouse at your local sporting store. 

The second part of this lesson is teaching your puppy to fetch. Playing with the dummies before you start is a good way to show the dog that you are playing a game. You will need a long line (i.e. 30 feet or 10 m) to train the puppy to come back if they aren't already reliable about that. Toss the dummy a short distance so that they can see it land (3 ft or 1m). It should be natural for them to want to chase it. If they don't chase the dummy when you throw it, encourage them by playing with the dummy some more. When they go to retrieve the dummy they will either play with it or pick it up and move with it. You want to encourage them to bring in the dummy. If they don't on their own, use the line to pull them in. After they get the idea, continue throwing the dummy farther and farther, praising them with "good" when they bring you the dummy.

A Brittany Spaniel is an excellent dog for the walking hunter. Their size and stamina make them excellent for use in or around heavy cover.  

  For those unaccustomed to hunting with a Brittany Spaniel, a Brit is a pointing dog. Recognizing this, the AKC has dropped the Spaniel from the official breed name (the CKC description of the breed still includes Spaniel.) Unlike other spaniels that flush, a Brittany Spaniel naturally "sets" on the scent of a bird. The Brit is also a natural retriever. So it is important for breeders to identify this trait and breed to improve on these natural assets.

  A Brit should be "steady from point to flight." This means your dog should remain in a point, focused on the bird until you flush the bird. The dog waits for your shot before they release from the point. Then they watch where the game lands to retrieve it.

  Early exposure to birds is an excellent motivator for your dog to want to seek out birds. Any gun dog with raised from good hunting lines will have the desire to hunt and it is your job to make your dog want to be a great hunter.

  If you are lucky enough to live in an area where game birds are plentiful, bring your young dog walking there and encourage them to find birds. From the moment your pointing dog smells their first bird, they will begin to pause (or "flash point.") That pause will naturally get longer and you want them to eventually be able to hold that pause (or point) until you flush the bird. That is accomplished with the whoa command.

  In the beginning though, don't discourage your dog from looking for birds, chasing them or even catching them. Your goal is to have your dog want to find birds because they like it and want to please you.

  It is very important not to try and train your dog around birds. If you do, you run the risk of your dog "blinking."  Blinking occurs when your dog intentionally avoids birds to avoid being punished. This is a major problem that is difficult to train your dog out of so it is best to avoid the problem altogether.

  If you aren't blessed with an abundance of birds near where you live, consider purchasing some birds from a game farm or even visiting. Some inexpensive game birds like quail are an excellent choice for your young hunter as they make for good training aids without making too much noise when flushed.

  The whoa command is the equivalent of asking your dog to freeze in the position they're in until you release them. It is different from stay where the dog is stopped and you are asking them to remain in the same position.

  You train your dog to whoa by placing them standing and training them not to move. A whoa board or mat is a good training aid that helps your dog understand they cannot move off the board or mat until you say it is OK. A problem you might encounter at this point is if you have taught your dog to sit automatically (for obedience), they might want to do this for whoa. A training aid to help solve this problem is called a suitcase handle. This a thick rope (nylon is best) with clasps at both ends. It is tied around the neck like a training lead as far back on the body as possible, just in front of the back legs. The idea is you have a lead to walk them with and if they try to put their butt down you can pull it back up.

  Once they have learned whoa from a stopped position, you can expand their training to command whoa when they were walking and have paused. That mastered, you can move onto asking them to whoa while they are moving. Training whoa is best done for these lessons on a 20 foot lead made from a thicker rope that may be picked up somewhere in the middle without burning your hands.

  With whoa mastered, you should be able to command your dog to freeze on point until you release it.

  Electronic collars are a useful tool to a professional trainer to remotely correct a serious error that a dog in training has made in response to a command the dog already knows. It is not ever to be used to train a dog something new. We do not recommend electronic collars for the novice trainer. Just think how hard it would be if someone tried to teach you to read with your collar on if you didn't know your alphabet. We use an electronic collar exclusively to remotely correct our dogs for disobeying a command they have already learned and understand.

  All of the basic obedience commands must be mastered before trying to train your dog for the field. "Whoa, heel, no" and "come" are the most important.

  There are many good brands of collars out on the market today. You should look for a good quality watertight unit with a range of 1/2 mile or more. It is extremely handy to get a unit that has a battery good indicator; the units don't work too well if the batteries are dead. A quality unit will have different correction levels as well as an audible alarm that you can use to warn the dog that a correction is coming. You could also consider getting a tracking unit. This device beeps in response to a dogs movement. It can save your dogs life in the event they become snagged in an abandoned snare or a trap.

  A dog is quartering when they are running a crisscross pattern in front of you. Since a Brit has been bred through successive generations to do this, it usually comes most naturally to them. With a little encouragement, it can provide for better success as the dogs work cover more efficiently.  

  "Casting out" is when your dog forges so far out in front of you that you have trouble seeing him. We don't think that casting out is a good trait for your Brittany Spaniel, even in this part of the country (prairies). If your dog points a bird where you can't even see the dog it makes it difficult to bag your bird. It will realize it's been seen and move before you can get there. We work our dogs within 50 yards along a fence line in a field, to 20-30 yards  inside heavy cover. The point being, you should try to be within shooting range in twenty strides or less.

  Backing is a more advanced technique for hunting with more than one dog. Backing is the honoring of another dogs point. If your dog sees another dogs point, they should automatically honor it by pointing at the other dog.  

  Backing can be trained by commanding your dog to whoa when you and they both see another dog point. With repetition, this can become automatic for your dog. 

   For more information about hunting, go to our Reading List.

We haven't had a dog who's gun-shy yet. We do our best to avoid this problem by firing a cap gun indoors right before we put the food bowl down for the puppies to eat. Ideally, if one of these dogs gets lost during a hunting trip, you should be able to fire your gun & he will use that sound to find you. Starting at an early age is the easiest way, if you have that option.

  If your dog is already afraid of the sound of gunfire,  you’ll have to gradually condition the dog to like the sound of gunfire.

  At the Canadian Association of Professional Pet Dog Trainers’ annual conference (March 2001), Dr. Pamela Reid spoke about how dogs learn. Something she discussed applies to the problem of gun-shyness, and is the basis for this article. She pointed out that when it’s a dog’s emotional response you want to modify, “classical conditioning” is more effective than “operant conditioning”. Take for example, a dog that is afraid of people. If you tried operant conditioning, you might punish the dog with a leash jerk when they growl at an approaching person. And reward with food when they don’t behave aggressively. In contrast, classical conditioning would approach this problem by neither rewarding or punishing behavior of the dog. Instead, you would set up a situations where strangers would approach the dog  (not so close that there’s a risk that the dog could bite them) and you would give food. After many repetitions, when a stranger approaches this dog, he will feel excitement rather than fear.

  If you used operant conditioning, rewards and punishment might change the dog’s behavior, i.e. he doesn’t growl, but are less likely to change the underlying emotion of fear. The dog would still feel afraid, and if the stranger pushed his luck, the dog might respond by biting the person. So classical conditioning is a better option when it’s an emotional response you want to change.

  The terms aren’t important; the point is that a dog that’s gun-shy feels afraid when they hear gunfire. So the best solution is through using classical conditioning, and it’s explained below.

  Start by firing a toy gun that makes only a quiet pop, and then reward with food. Repeat over and over. Bang, food, bang, food…  Next,  buy a cap gun from Wal-Mart, in the kid's toys department with the cowboy stuff. Fire it, follow with food and praise. Repeat over and over. Then try firing a starter’s pistol (approximately equivalent to  a 22) outside. Follow with food. Repeat many times. The next step is to fire a 20 guage shotgun, where the gun is fired facing away from the dog, say 30 feet away, so the sound is muffled. Give food and praise. Repeat over and over. Progress to a 12 guage, firing from a position closer and closer to the dog. The dog will make an association that loud bang means good food. Instead of feeling afraid, they'll tend to start salivating or get excited when they see the gun.

  You might also find it useful to record a session where you fire your gun in the field over and over, such as a target practice. Play it back on your stereo, first soft, gradually louder and louder. Follow the sound with praise and food. This is another way to work on increasing the challenge by increasing the stereo volume instead of the type of gun used.

  The speed at which you present new challenges will depend on the reaction you see from the dog. The more scared the dog is to begin with, the slower you will have to go, rewarding the smallest baby-steps in the right direction. For example, you might need to start with clapping or dripping a book and then giving food, if the sound of a toy gun is extremely scary for that particular dog. Eventually, the dog should be more accepting of gunfire. Expect this to take months or years. That works out to many repetitions. But hopefully, the resulting happy hunting partner is worth the time and effort!

  Please let us know if you find any useful tricks for helping to modify gun shyness, so we can pass them on to others.  

http://www3.sympatico.ca/ugo.pennacchietti/references2.html
Uplander Kennels Check out Ugo Pennacchietti's site for some fun videos of dogs on point with Brittanys "holding their own" and hunting in style.

The American Kennel Club's Brittany page also has a short video of Brittanys in the field.

http://www.versatiledogs.com Versatile dogs website is dedicated to Pointing Dogs, Retrievers, and Spaniels.  There are message boards, with lots of information on health and veterinary concerns for field dogs, training information and a bookstore.

For a huge variety of hunting supplies, shop online at Gun Dog Supply
http://www.gundogsupply.com

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