Watching a well trained hunting dog is a intricate display of handler communication and obedient dog. With a little bit of knowledge almost anyone can teach their hunting dog how to find and retrieve birds. One of the first things you should consider doing with your dog is make sure it is obedience trained and respects you. This is of the utmost importance in training a hunting dog. It is incredibly important for their to be trust between dog and owner. Make sure to work with your dog if they are behind in this area. A well-trained dog doesn’t just happen. You can consult books like Dog Training Retreivers and Pointing Dogs by Jason Smith.

You will have to invest in some training tools once your dog is obedience trained and you plan to start their hunting training. A great tool to start working your dog on retrieving is a Retrieving dummies. You can start simply by playing fetch with it. You dog will most likely find this to be a fun activity. Later you may wish to invest in a bird specific dummy along with a sent, such as a pheasant dummy and training sent. This helps to teach your dog to look for specific shapes and smells. You can then make it more complex by dragging your dummy across the ground and hiding it while the dog isn’t watching. You can then release the dog and show him the track.

When you are ready to begin hunting you might want to consider a training collar. Sometimes a dog requires a strong stimulus to break their attention when they are on a bird trail. Having a training collar is a great way to interrupt that drive your dog has and call them back to you. It makes for a great safety purchase for your dog. Labs, retrievers, pointers and other hunting dogs love doing what comes naturally to them.