The Rope
One way to control a young dog around birds is with the
bellyband. By putting an e-collar
on the dogs flank during heel and whoa drills in the yard you can transition
from the lead to the collar rather quickly. Then, when the dog is in the woods it’s easy to push the
button to get the dog to stop when it’s starting to crowd a bird, needs to stop
to flush on a bumped bird, and later when you want to stop it from breaking
after the shot. The big problem
with the bellyband is that you can easily make a young dog too cautious around
birds which can lead to non-productives.
In the worse case scenario a dog might start blinking birds to avoid
getting shocked.
If you don’t feel like you and/or your dog are ready for the
bellyband, there is a simple alternative – a short piece of rope. Before I get to that I have a couple of
horror stories to relate. The
first has to do with attaching a light drag rope to a dog’s collar. I know of at least one incident where a
dog was running in the woods with a rope attached to its collar, the rope hung
up and the dog’s neck was broken.
When Wild Apple Jack’s dam was a derby I had her wearing a harness and
dragging about 40 feet of heavy polypro rope. The rope was intended to slow her down so I could keep her
close and get a hold of her when she pointed. It had worked effectively a number of times. However, on a Saturday I took her for a
run in a new spot and all was going well until the bell just seemed to
stop. This was before reliable
tracking devices that you could carry in the woods and by the time I realized
she was not on point she was long gone.
We found her with the rope wrapped around a blowdown two days
later. So, that was the end of
having a dog drag a long heavy rope in the woods even when it’s attached to a
harness. On another occasion, a
friend was running a promising young dog and hitched a couple of lengths of
logging chain to the harness. That
dog was able to drag them through the cover but the problem came when he went
over a bank to get a drink of water and the water’s edge went straight down to
a murky depth of 25 – 30 feet. We
weren’t sure where he went in and there was no way we could dive in to find
him.
So, when I do run a rope, it’s always with a harness and I
use a light piece of polypro that is stiff enough that it doesn’t whip around
brush and saplings and short enough that it really doesn’t slow the dog down
much. This rope makes it a lot
easier to get a hold of the dog when it’s on point. If you’re working alone you can throw a quick hitch around
the nearest tree or bush and the dog is brought up short if it tries to follow
you in on the flush or tries to break when the bird goes. I usually don’t say much if anything in
these situations – I let the rope do it’s work just like I did with the piggin’
string. Another strategy I use
once the dog is staunch is to carry a six-foot rope lead and snap it on the
dog’s collar and anchor it to something before I flush. It’s a pretty stubborn dog that doesn’t
quickly learn that there is no point (pun intended) trying to creep in or chase
at the flush when it’s tied to something solid. After a few times with this you can start setting the dog
back just enough to take the pressure off the rope. When the dog starts standing on its own without being
brought up short by the rope you can stop tying it up every time and have the
rope handy as a flushing whip if (when) the dog does break again.
Let the Training Begin
The endless hours of yardwork are behind us and as July 1st
rapidly approaches we spent one final day mowing and weed whacking in Red Barn
Friday. In the course of working
we flushed one woodcock from the side of the trail as we passed through section
two. Tony flushed a good size
brood of grouse while working in section three. Next week we’ll start running dogs on a regular schedule.
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