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>>>If
there are birds anywhere near
me the soft/sharp dog will find them. I
don't think you would
appreciate an aggressive/sharp flushing dog that did
all the flushing a
hundred meters from
you.
Cj>>>
No, I would not but the flushing is another matter
actually. It took for ex. years for Briz to become cautious and steady on point,
that's why she was called the Calamity Briz. She was, once she found scent, what
you call a self-hunter even if she never has been as independent and wide
ranging as her mother Foxy, that I never considered as a self
hunter. Foxy's vision of distance was only different from our vision of
distance. Honestly: I really believe so! Foxy had only one nature, Briz had
two at least when she was younger and still I sometimes think that there are two
dogs in one shell. Before Briz during a search found scent she was
co-operative as a spaniel. Today she can co-operate also in the vicinity of
birds.
When I years ago read the entire history of
birddogs from old books and then some even older books I remember one of the
authors, a Norwegian man C.M. Pay, who travelled around the world hunting
both this and that but his main interest was birddogs. Once he was in Finland
with a pointer, I believe he had borrowed it from his Finnish host. Anyway they
were hunting forest somewhere and since Finland is the land of the thousand
lakes (there are 60 000 I believe) you can not walk very far before you hit
water. This was a warm day and as the pointer came to a very narrow lake it
jumped into the water and swam to the other side. Almost immediately after
having climbed up on the other side it took a firm point. Our Norwegian
gentleman had no choice but started to walk around the lake in the summer heat.
During this walk he shot several snipe that he flushed along the shoreline. It
took more than an hour for him to come to the other side of the lake and to find
the dog. The dog was a practical character and had laid down on its side on
the grass with its nose pointing towards the birds and thereby having control of
them. When it heard its master coming it greeted him with a
couple of waves of its tail, then it stood up and took a firm point again. He
shot a left and right as they flushed the birds and down fell two young black
grouse. That is a wonderful story I think and something that could be expected
from a really good pointing dog.
So we do not expect our dogs to flush the birds
before we are at its side ready to shoot and by time good dogs learn patience
and try to be cautious on point while still controlling the bird/s, no matter
how far away they are. Some dogs, when they find birds out of sight for the
handler, will come back to the handler and "report" that it has found the
birds. If the handler is sensitive to the dogs signals, they can behave in many
different ways, some climb on the handler while others only "look different and
strange", the first time it reports and follows the dog, then the dog will
continue to report and you have won the highest prize in the lottery of a
birddoggers life.
Ranging wide and flushing far away has nothing to
do with each other. A short ranging dog can also flush far away since far away
for you carrying a shotgun is more than 25 - 30 meters. Ranging wide means
that it takes longer for you to come to the point, provided you can find the
dog. Easy on flat bare mountain and field and difficult in covered terrain
and forest. Unless the dog is a reporting dog you can use a tracking
collar for pointing dogs, on the dog.
Ranging wide and being out of control are also two
different things. A wide ranging dog is still in contact with its handler and
tries to cover all the terrain in front of him but the average precision in
covering the terrain near the handler is of course lower than for a close
ranging dog (rabbit hunting spaniels for ex. cover ALL the terrain within
reach of the handlers gun). This is most often partly the handlers fault
because most handlers, no matter if they run birddogs, spaniels or moose hounds,
tend to walk too fast and as the dog wants to pass in front of the handler, the
handler will with each cast of the dog create areas of ground that are cut out
of reach for the dogs nose. The wider the dog ranges, the slower the handler has
to walk. Very comfortable for some and very testing for those who lack
patience.
A dog out of control is a dog out of control no
matter if it is wide or short ranging. I have seen out of control spaniels range
as wide as 200 meters ))
Norwegian studies have however found that wide
ranging dogs will find more birds in average than close ranging dogs, when the
populations are normal or low. When there are plenty birds everywhere as there
can be say every 10:th year then the wide rangers will miss more birds close to
the handler.
Where was I ?? Yes, no matter if the dog is wide or
short ranging we want it to ideally hold the point for a reasonable time, say in
extreme cases up to 30 minutes so that we have time to partly climb up
to it on the hillside and then recover our breath for a few minutes before
preparing to shoot. A lot depends of the birds also. If they are restless the
dog has to relocate often and if it is a bold dog it will try to stop them from
moving by putting more pressure on them. The more movement there is the more
changes there are for the inexperienced dog to make mistakes. If the birds are
secure and do not move around then things are much easier for both the dog and
the gun. Anyway in most cases you will reach the dog within
minutes.
There is also a point in having a dog that can do
very fast flushes on command, like our Briz do. If the dog suddenly attacks the
birds in a violent way they have no choice but to get straight up in the air.
Old pheasant, capercailzie and grouse cocks for ex. can run and endlessly
race with the dog unless it dares to really attack them without any mercy.
Usually sticky dogs are created by the handler, they are too rough with the dog
trying to steady it to flush. They are not shy for the birds but they are afraid
of the handler. "Wings in the air and the master beats me!"
When the dog is searching it is "free to do what it
wants" but since it is a birddog it wants to search birds and we only demand it
to be "free but still keeping contact with us". The contact part is trained
outside the hunting grounds but practiced during the hunt. When the dog is on
point it will in the end understand that it does not point for its own pleasure
but for the handler also. When it flushes the birds it does not flush before
given permission by the handler. When there are wings in the air it hits the
brakes since the handler demands it to hit the brakes. The entire sequence of
happenings is all the time a co-operation with the handler, no matter if the dog
ranges wide or close. If they hunt together frequently the tie between them will
become closer as years pass by. For ex. Briz can no longer have an outing by
herself when we are on our everyday fitness training walks. When I let her out
of the car she do not start to "hunt" before I start to walk away from the car.
When I stop to have a pee she will stop and wait until I am finished. When I lay
down to have a rest in the sun she lays down beside me.
It is usually said that the firm point comes from
training the dog to be steady to flush, not to chase after flushing the bird. So
the firm point can and must not be trained, it will be a consequence of the
steady to wing training. On the same time we want the dog to be free to work
with the birds so they do not start running. Then again dogs are individuals and
nothing of this is written in stone.
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