Teaching my old dog to fetch
Do you want your hunting dog to retrieve on command rather than when it feels like it? Here’s how an amateur (me) tries it and a pro (Ethan Pippitt) accomplishes it. Watch and learn.
Master Trainer Ethan Pippitt and I. I bumped into Ethan for the first time during a Texas quail hunt.
As prologue, here’s some background on Covey the Wonderdog (we wonder if she’s smarter than us or just conniving) came to us from Beirlsetters.com about three years ago. She’s an English setter and just about the prettiest dog we’ve ever seen. And she loves to hunt birds. Any birds. Pheasants, grouse, robins, even red-tailed hawks. Rather than “train” her, we took the advice of many and let her “develop” on her instincts. Uh oh…
The instincts seemed to suggest she point one bird, chase another. Fetch one, ignore another. We let it slide. For two seasons. She was getting more consistent, but we were running out of time. So, when I met master trainer Ethan Pippitt on a quail hunt and saw how well his shorthairs worked, I decided the smarter move was to hire him to teach our old dog new tricks.
Covey with her first two quail. She retrieved neither of them, thus my decision to send her to Standing Stone Kennels.
“Can you teach Covey to hold her points consistently and retrieve to hand. On command?
“We can do that,” Ethan said. “It’ll take longer than if we’d started her as a pup. Why don’t you just buy one of my shorthair pups and…” Of course, he was half joking because he’d seen the bond between Covey and me. But he also knew that training a blank slate (puppy) would be faster and less expensive than training an older dog. Words to the wise. Nevertheless, Covey went to school. This video shows some of the subtle challenges an experienced dog psychologist like Ethan can read, understand, and overcome.
In this second video here you can see the difference in approach taken by amateur trainer, me. About 6 months before we sent Covey to Standing Stone Kennels, I started “fetch” training her on a jury-rigged bench with my idea of positive reinforcement — effusive praise augmented (or overwhelmed) by tidbits of cheap hotdogs. I thought it was working until I tried (too soon) transitioning to feathers. After I taped a couple of old grouse wings to the dummy, Covey wouldn’t grab it. I then got too involved in work projects and failed to continue the training.
Ethan should have Covey well schooled soon and certainly in plenty of time for her to direct me to my goal for the fall — bagging at least one of every species of upland game bird in Idaho. Looks like we’re on track! Stay tuned for further progress reports followed by September field action.
Covey with her first limit of South Dakota pheasants. She pointed one, retrieved one. It was a start.
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