breaking when hunting

[Raymond Little]

My hunting partner purchased a nice started dog last year but never learned how to handle him in a training or hunting situation. The dog is so FUBAR'ed right not it's not funny, breaks on every shot but owner refused to stake him down. I plan to set a dentist appt soon because I have ground my teeth all season!!

[Ray Kirkpatrick]

Consider a leash or tie out stake. This will prevent him getting his reward unless you release him.

[huntinman]

My hunting partner purchased a nice started dog last year but never learned how to handle him in a training or hunting situation. The dog is so FUBAR'ed right not it's not funny, breaks on every shot but owner refused to stake him down. I plan to set a dentist appt soon because I have ground my teeth all season!!

HaHa!! You may have to explain FUBAR to some of these more genteel folks on the board...

[Tom. P.]

Leave your gun in the truck and work your dog. Let your buddies shoot your limit. Its well worth sacrificing your shooting in your dogs first season for the long-run payoff. I tell every one of my clients this exact thing.

Agreed x2!! Its gonna happen to many of us sooner or later. Mine did the same thing this year and He is 3 years old. So I unloaded the gun and let everyone else shoot because this issue was more important to me then firing my gun.After a couple volleys it was starting to sink in again. Its so hard to recreate the excitement of the hunt during training and unfortunately thats when this starts to happen. Nip it NOW, before it really gets worse.

[Gauge123]

Been down this road and fixed it. Sooooo
We have two weeks left to hunt. I'd stake him so you can control when he goes. Enjoy your last few hunts.
Post Season: If he is steady to sit. Get a (some) live bird(s). Sit Fido, introduce the bird. You are there to correct when he breaks, which I bet he will do. Very soon you will be able to let the bird flop all around him. Repeat in the water (at the blind if possible). It only took a few of these for my lab to get used to the excitement and was able to wait to be sent.

[Scott Adams]

Once you have corrected your dog in the blind while your buddies are shooting and he is steady, take it to the next step.
Have your buddies hold & use the transmitter while you stand up and shoot. Let others tell him "sit" and correct him. You can teach this outside of real hunts, as others said.
Eventually, you & the dog will be able to hunt alone, and he might be steady.

[Jim Danis]

I would quit shooting all together until I fix this. Sounds like this is your dogs 1st season and he is young. Handle your dog and don't shoot. I hunt my dog like I train with him and demand the same standards. He's 9 and still wears a collar. The 1st time he broke I got him pretty good with the collar, yelled NO and then here. I was able to get the duck mysef and denied him the retrieve. The next time ducks were working I nicked him and said sit. He didn't budge. Over the years he has broken a few more times and I'll give him a stout nick and recall him then send him for the bird. It's enough of a wake up call that I'm usually good for the rest of the season.

[Hunt'EmUp]

Same as you would do if he were breaking in training, NO HERE, Collar correction. If he's breaking he's got plenty of desire to get the bird your not going to take that out of him with a correction. Your just going to save yourself, a bunch head-ache and time. If he were breaking in training he'd get corrected for it, hunting is an extension of training. Even the most solid experienced dog is prone to break while hunting, a solid correction, even if that means burning him all the way out to the bird and all the way back, is usually all that is needed put to all that training back into place. Sure you can go back, put your gun up, just train the dog, making sure he understands that he's not allowed to leave without being sent. But eventually your going to pick up that gun again, the dog still needs to stay, he's been trained that if he doesn't stay he gets corrected. Correct now or correct later, eventually you still need to correct.

[Tigershark]

I had a similar issue here's what I did, my dog was breaking when birds were landing something that was difficult to do in training so I took him to a local roost several evenings along with his blind, sat him on the edge of the water and let him see 1000s of birds land all around him, by the second time he was solid, quiet no movement just what i wanted, took him back hunting and he started to whine and creep a little in the blind completely opposite of what he did in training, he learned quickly the difference between training and hunting so the next step was to take him back to the roost reinforce the commands then back to hunting and let him try in a real scenario, I was by myself no shooting but I did let birds work really close within 20 yards when he whined I gave him a command and a strong nick, by the second group he had gotten the picture, I never pulled the trigger and never was planning on it, but i got as close to a real scenario as I could. Hopefully I wil try him out with a buddy tomorrow where he will be shooting and I will be still working with the dog. I would rather give up some hunts and have the dog do exactly what I want him to than to let him whine or break or you name it, small sacrifice for the long run.

[Plippert]

A number of people have already mentioned this I believe. But I would certainly trade you gun in for a heeling stick during a couple hunts. I can not think of a better way to train your dog not to break. It is different then training at home. The dogs feed off of the excitement of others and they need to know that though it IS exciting they still have to hold to their training.