Teaching Pup To Hunt: How to turn your diamond in the rough into a gem of a hunting dog.

BY BILL TARRANT

ILLUSTRATED BY SAL CATALANO

FIELD & STREAM JUNE 1985 / "Gun Dogs" column

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was a colossal diamond in the rough. You might have read about it last November when Associated Press reported the discovery of an ". . . 890-carat, canary-yellow stone the size of a lemon." Now if this wasn’t staggering enough to contemplate some guy actually picked this stone up off the ground—we were told the owners of the gem would take eighteen months cutting it down to some 550 carats. Eighteen months! I’d call that very, very deliberately applied power.

Now we see all types of professionals exercise applied power. The pilot, the surgeon, the engineer. But I’m thinking now of the cue ball tapped just enough so the number ball drops into the side pocket-delicately, silently, cleanly. How different from my early days on the road in Kansas. Back then, the only thing open for the travelin' man after dark was the beer hall with the elk head on the wall, cobwebs lacing antler to antler. And there were the Folger-can spittoons, the domino tables, the local farm boys playing pool, drinking grape pop, and slamming the balls so hard the tassels would leap up on the side of the table.

From those Great Plains' bars I’ve seen cue balls leave the arena of play, exit the premises, and go rolling down Main Street. I don’t think any of those good ol' boys ended up cutting an 890-carat stone.

And now to my point. Pup, too, is a colossal diamond in the rough. And if left to his own devices he’ll go hunting just like the Kansas farm boys played pool. Which would be hell-bent-for-election out the back of the pickup truck, leaving patches of his coat on the barbed wire fence, through the mud ditch, into the rattling row crops, off toward the blue-gray stand of trees by the creek, and gone for the day.

As diamond cutters, we who train dogs must take eighteen months to turn Pup into a gem of a hunting dog. It’s all done with a plain leather collar, a hank of rope, and some land to train on. Here’s what we do: Buy Pup a sure’nuf stout leather collar with a plain D-ring and adjust it just snug enough around Pup’s neck so you can slide through two or three fingers laid flat and side-by-side. Now order a snap swivel from any good gun-dog supply store, thread your check cord through the eyelet of the swivel, tie a bowline knot about 7 inches from the swivel, and snap the cord to the D-ring. One day we’ll want to flip the bowline knot and tap Pup under the chin, which will lift his head and let us get his attention.

For a check cord we’ll use a piece of 5/16- or 3/8-inch tight-woven nylon rope. Say about 20 feet, for that length will control Pup well at field, plus it coils nicely around thumb and elbow to make a neat package for storage.

Now nylon rope that’s worth having is hard to find these days. Most of what’s available is so soft and limp that it won’t take a wave when you flip it. To correct this, toss your check cord into a mud puddle overnight and let it soak up body. When it dries out you’ve got something with authority.

Finish out your check cord by tying a granny knot at your end: now the rope won’t slip through your fingers when Pup lunges. A simple granny knot will do, since later we’ll untie the thing and let Pup run with a slick cord. This will be intermediary training, letting him have his own head, but we can always run forward and pick up the cord to have control once again. And Pup needs a slick cord so the thing won’t hang up in the crevices of rocks or the V of branches.

Now take Pup to field, snap on your check cord, and we’ll start quartering. Which is to hunt. And ideally Pup must learn to run for targets of opportunity—so let her rip. Then when he enters the target of opportunity, or the covey’s scent cone, Pup must stop his forward drive and point. Or should the birds have moved, he must begin short-quartering to beat out the field.

To teach all this we’d like to have a field mowed about 8 inches high, with islands of tall grass left as targets. With such a setup, Pup will just get the whole picture faster. We’ll plant our birds in the grass stands. There’ll never be any on the flat lawn. Pup’ll get the idea: birds are in the rough stuff, never out where it’s smooth.

Okay, let’s go. Take Pup’s leather collar in your non-gun hand and step off, casting Pup away with the sweep of your hand (like you were throwing a bowling ball) and commanding, "All right." Repeat this combined cast and command whenever possible: while putting Pup in his kennel, or in the truck, or when entering the house. The eventual outcome will be that Pup will take a cast off your hand to hunt in a desired direction, or with later precision, to mark down a fallen bird.

In field-trial parlance, the cast is called the breakaway. Now when Pup is launched he’s got 20 feet before he comes to the end of his rope. Be easy. Let the cord slide through your hand so you can brake Pup gradually. Don’t let him hit and flip. Incidentally, gloves are a necessity at this stage of Pup’s training—without them, you’ll get rope burns.

Then just before Pup hits the end of his rope you give the rig a tug, step off the direction you want to go, and holler, "All right." There’s that word again. It means "hunt." And Pup will learn to honor that word all his life. Just as he’ll go where you want him to by looking at the direction you walk, or where you ride your hunting horse, or drive your hunting Jeep.

After a few maneuvers you hit Pup at the end of his line and tell him, "Here," as you reel him into you. Now you’re teaching him to come when called. There’s no way you can two-hand a rope and get it reeled up fast enough to beat Pup. So you milk the thing. Hold it loosely in your gloved left hand and milk it through with your right. That gives you 3-foot sweeps, with the rope coiling behind you.

Now when Pup’s at side you sweeten him up, give him some praise, or maybe a tidbit, and then check him over to see that all is okay. If it is, grab that leather collar, step off, and command, "All right," casting Pup to hunt again.

Day after week after month we do this. And the end result will be a dog that is casting when told, turning when ordered, going the direction indicated, and coming to side when called. Now that’s a bird dog most men will never see. Right?

Only when all this is down pat will we introduce the bird to these islands of grass. That’s when we’ll teach "Whoa"—at the end of the hunt. Our emphasis now is to get the hunt started and keep it going with "deliberately applied power," as classically portrayed by the diamond cutter. That jeweler must slough off the excess and get to the gem. Same with Pup. He must avoid the sterile parts of every field and go to the bird.

All right, let’s say we’ve cast Pup, he’s hit the end of his rope, been turned by our tug and verbal command, and now he’s running parallel beside us as we walk sideways to the field. But what’s this? The cord is bellied down. There’s slack in it. Which means Pup is not under control. Furthermore that check cord must be fed out and milked in so it’s always taut. You’ve got to pay attention and you’ve got to be fast.

Another thing. We’ve talked here of the ideal. We’ve talked of a Pup that casts to front, turns to side, and generally does what we want him to do. Ever meet such a Pup? Of course not. Our Pup has jumped sideways when we cast him, leaped behind us, wrapped the cord around our knees, jerked us to the ground, and is now trying to plow a furrow with our nose.

So you must be ready. When Pup cuts back and runs behind you, you must either pass the rope from hand to hand behind you, or lift your arm high and let the rope clear you like it was attached to a Maypole.

Now while check-cording we continually bend down and tear loose tufts of grass and throw them to the wind. Pup is always check-corded into the wind. A downwind hunter will never find a bird. Oh, he may stumble onto one, but that’s not what we’re training for. We’re trying to build a performer, not a stumbler.

Now I’ve seen pups so strong the handler had to use a cheater to slow down his forward race. If this proves the case, take your check cord and toss a half-hitch around Pup’s waist. Now you’ve got him.

Another thing. If Pup gets tangled, we never go to him. That would merely build up his dependency on us. Pup must learn to be self-sufficient. What if he’s hung up someplace we could never locate? Pup’ll have a better chance of survival if he can fend for himself.

But all during this time you’ll be check-cording, and Pup’ll be fouling the rope. That thing will be wrapped about his legs, running through his crotch, looping his neck. You’ll learn to be a cowboy, however, letting the cord go slack, then whipping it just at the right moment to clear Pup’s running gear and then releasing him to hunt.

Once you and Pup have settled to the cast-and-tug routine you’ll want to start singing. If you’ve ever been to a major bird-dog trial where the handlers are mounted on horseback, you’ll hear each handler singing, or yodeling, to his dog. To sing is not to break out into a chorus of "Old McDonald Had a Farm." Rather it is a roller-coaster hum cast far afield, sounding something like, Oooooooo-eeeee-aaaaa-ooooo. And on and on. Each handler has a distinctive voice and song.

The singing accomplishes three things. One, it tells your dog where you are. Since he must be hunting for the gun and not for himself, this will establish his range and will save him hunting time—he’ll not need to be backtracking just to find out where you are. Two, singing to your dog will sooth him, will let him know everything is all right. And three, you can eventually blend in commands without seeming (to an outsider) ever to have given one.

Many a professional trainer has conditioned the dog to change directions by lifting his hat, or the way he sits in the saddle, or standing in the stirrups . . . or in the way he sings.

Also, by this time you’ll probably have discovered that the word "Here" doesn’t carry well a quarter of a mile or so. Consequently, we substitute the word, "Ho." You can get some mileage with this word, and it is succinct and distinctive. There’ll be critics who’ll say the word sounds too much like "No," and I’ll grant you it does. But just as you can tell the difference, so can an all-age dog. I’m not saying to use it on a raw pup. For one thing it would confuse him not only with "No," but also with "Whoa."

So everything has its season. As a child you were probably taught "Nummy-nummy," long before you were invited to "Sit down and eat."

Training a dog or a human is not an event, it is a process. And as the student changes, so do the instructions and the words and the examples and everything else.

With the techniques we’ve discussed here we’re not concerned with pointing a bird, nor fetching one up, nor styling a dog on point. We’ve merely wanted to teach Pup how to quarter, which is to say, how to hunt. We can keep building on these lessons, eventually introducing Pup to game …​ to flyaway game that will really birdy him up. Only later will we ask him to honor wing and shot, and that will not be done in a hunting situation, but rather in a whoaing situation, something entirely different.

One final thing: as you take Pup to field you’d better precondition yourself for a lot of abuse. A strong pointer pup will almost jerk your arms out of the sockets. And to get all this down right the two of you will end up walking miles. If you don’t have the stamina, you’ll fall short of your goal. So you’ve got to get in shape before you ever snap the check cord to Pup’s collar.

Until next month when we discuss the right dog for you, Happy Training.