Thread: Rabbit aversion training ...

Its good to someone laugh at themselves and be honest

as ol Forest Gump says "it happens".....
agree 100% on the merits of the "leave it" command
we were out the other weekend after wallabies and fallow
my bitch was behaving herself nicely and even had 3 (from memory)rabbits jump out from literally under her feeta "leave it" was all that was needed and she carried on she did point a couple really solidly again ignoring when told to leave.
she not perfect by any means and got a bit toey when fallow was bouncing around hillside,but she stayed with me and didn't hoon off. same when we watching wallys on opposite hill face. all in all a bloody good day out on hill and great to reinforce training where I could see her.
and yes when I'd shot wallys I got her to lead me to carcase again more training.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

as ol Forest Gump says "it happens"......

Not often around here, hence the funny side of it.

Originally Posted by Ruff

Not often around here, hence the funny side of it.

if you remember the movie....Forest had just stepped in a dog turd... the TShirt guy took what was said and made it into "shit happens"
and yes Ackley taking the piss out of yourself is a good Kiwi trait.

Steady to shot!

@Ruff, do not mean to be fractious but I have trialled in the wild game trials...my young bitch is shaping up nicely and I intend to trial her in the wild game trials...she is working well...tragically losing my beautiful Falco blew the lid off things for me re the trials but we will be back!!; Bob Whitehead was our judge at one trial (Novice, naturally enough!!) ...he really liked Falcs...

I know you've dabbled. I'd hopes you might get more out of that than the first sentence.

Nailed it @Ruff.

I ran a dog once for that old master Eric Douglas on the edge of an orchard in Manutuke, looking for advice. I was hacking my dog back with lots of 'stops' which is a drop to me (I'm old school). He said something which has stuck with me to this day. "For every negative you give a dog you must give a positive. You can't keep dropping him, a negative, without giving him a positive. you'll knock the stuffing out of him" His advice was to turn him, or to send him on a retrieve after the drop. This was my first lesson in drive enhancing, and drive diminishing. It is something I have taken through into fur-proofing. Genetically some of my dogs are very 'furry' - they will hunt and point fur. This historically has meant a dog has a predisposition to hunt by eye, a big no-no in the pointing and setting breeds but not unusual in a driven dog. As Ruff mentions, having a solid foundation in the stop is the main issue. Once the drop is pretty bulletproof in a low distraction area, you then need to up the ante by introducing the 'provocation' as Robyn Gaskin calls it. You then apply that same drop while increasing the distraction. This historically in the UK was the forte of the rabbit pen. I don't think the pen is necessary in NZ, we have tons of the furry little buggers as it is. It is easily achieved hunting in NZ, when your dog points or runs up a hare, drop him, and turn him. The best thing is during hunting is it is quickly forgotten when you get back into birds. Birds become the positive, 'bugs' becomes the negative.

I can say at just over 2 years Baz (my most furry dog) is steady to rabbit. I don't think I will ever get him out of pointing the dirty little ground grubbers though

Exactly Pointer, when I first about Rabbit Pens I got excited and thought it was the holy grail... then I researched a bit more and found we can do the same here without the fencing.

NZ is one big rabbit pen!