r/birddogs

Meet Lucy. She’s not your typical bird dog, but she gets the job done all the same.

She’s a young dog who made all sorts of mistakes during her first hunting season, but she learned a ton. It’s been a blast working with her and getting to see the limits of this breed. Carolina Dogs are a pre-contact landrace breed, so they can be tough to work with. They are native to this continent up to 15,000 years ago. There’s no selective bird-dog breeding working in your favor — just cooperation and raw prey drive.

She’s sweet as pie in the house and hammers dove and quail in the field.

In some of these photos you’ll see what looks like a traditional point. Those are planted quail she found during training. On wild birds she’s developed more of an indication behavior than a classic point. She’ll slam on the brakes and look back at me to let me know there’s a covey around. Sometimes it’s a staunch point, sometimes it’s a full neck crane back at me — we’re still figuring it out together. She has learned the big lesson that wild birds will not accept pressure like planted quail, that was her big takeaway from her first quail season.

She’s become a nice little retriever in the dove field and is an overall joy to be around. I’m excited to see what her second and third hunting seasons look like and where the ceiling is with a dog like this.

My 10 y/o fox red Bailey. An absolute stud of a retriever. Sad to say this was probably her last season. Time is not on her side, but her and I made a lot of great memories

This is training from last spring/summer, before Lucy’s first quail season.

She was about 6 - 9 months. It was a lot of fun seeing her figure it out.

Edit: Lucy is a Carolina Dog/American dingo, not a traditional bird dog breed. The pointing work is something we’ve been developing with her over the last year as an experiment.

the first 5 minutes of her being awake are so pleasant and adorable and then she shark attacks my face and legs for the next hour before crying for 30 seconds and passing out again. i literally can’t touch her without her thinking its playing and freaking tf out. i mean its so cute, but holy shit my hands are destroyed. i look like an abuse victim. redirect redirect redirect ignore sometimes and that works for maybe a minute before my flesh becomes wildly more interesting. she’ll grow out of it in like, a year or two….right?

Last year opening day dove hunt in AZ.

Rue, 8yr old female, 67lbs Field Golden Retriever.

Amazing temperment, high game drive, amazing with family, kids, social outings, and one of the sweetest dogs.

#gundog #bestfriend

For those that live in the suburbs/city, what do you do in the offseason to keep your dog exercised and engaged?

We go for 3-4 mile bike rides almost every day. We just finished his rally novice title, but he does not love obedience work; he would rather follow his nose. There’s nowhere within 1.5 hours to take him off leash without worrying about rattlesnakes (except a dog park which I’m not comfortable with). We have a pool, but this crazy dog does not like water!

Just curious what everyone else does with these high performing dogs 😊

This beautiful Boykin (June) is my first dog and I have the goal of training her to be a duck hunting dog as where we hunt is doesn’t ever get too cold. That and combined with her size (I used to be very scared of big dogs) made us settle on a Boykin. This is a rep from our very early retrieve training. I am eventually going to try the Smart Works program but she just turned 12 weeks so we’ve just been working on fetching and getting her to come back. 4-5 tosses at a time. This is a rep from earlier. What would yall say to change for her currently?

Cross posting in Boykin sub because this is actually Shady’s sibling from a couple post ago! This is Shady’s sister and weighed 12.19 pounds her last vet visit.

I have a bungie cord attached to his retractable lead, which Is attached to harnesses. Also in cold weather means I don't have to hold the lead and put it round my waist, so hands can go in pockets 😂.

Hey all, I have a 6mo old GSP that of course has endless energy. Was wondering if letting her roam some public hunting grounds near me off leash (where I actually bird hunt) is a good idea? She’s already bird crazy and and has a great nose. Just wondering if this may be a bad idea for some reason that I’m not thinking of as she is my first bird dog.

So this is Paju, our 9 week old irish setter. First week home has involved a lot of biting things he shouldn’t, learning ”leave it” and sleeping. He’s my first setter and will be used for grouses and willow grouses in Finland. He’s learning so fast his basic commands and also gets a lot of love and play time, like he should.

Howdy! I have a 5mo old Brittany puppy. He has been absolutely fantastic in terms of obedience and house training and has been recently pointing the occasional bird. I want to really begin to hone in his hunting and pointing but I don’t really know where to start. He’s my first bird dog and I’m relatively new to bird hunting in general. There is a pheasant farm near me that members are allowed to use in the off-season months to train and run their dogs. I really just don’t know exactly where and how to start getting him ready to hunt. Any and all advice is appreciated. I’m in CO springs if that helps at all.