Thread: Bo

Thought I'd start a diary of sorts to follow the progress of my pup "Bo"
I have to again thank @Harryg for putting me in contact with his mate Jason, who I got this pup from. Bo is Heading dog, Catahoula Cross, possibly a few other bits and bobs in there from down the line, but he definately shows the intelligence from the Heading dog, and the nose of the Catahoula. He has pretty big webbed also which is a strong Catahoula trait as they were originally bred to be blood hounds in the marshy and swampy southern US.
Some dogs from his line are working as game dogs and some are also long find pig dogs.
When I got Bo home we didn't have a name for him and it took us a while to come up with one. Wife wanted him to have a Spanish name and came up with all sorts of suggestions but I wanted him to have a simple one or two syllable name. For a moment there he was going to be "Disco" but then wife suggested "Boliche" which is the word they use for disco in Uruguay, so we shortened that and now he's Bo (she still calls him Boliche when he's been naughty..)
This is him the day I picked him up

He’s a handsome wee lad.


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I had to think long and hard about what I really wanted from a dog as teaching them as they grow is really going to be your best shot at ending up with a dog that is rock solid in its job. I hunt mainly south island tops and farmland so the need for an indicating "Bush specialist" wasnt high on my list of priorities. I came up with a bit of a list with three main points:

* mild mannered on the hill, doesn't bark or wander
* track live animals via ground or air scenting
* find shot animals quickly

I've done all sorts of reading from a tonne of different sources about what is the best way to go about achieving a good outcome with Bo and it seems no two ways are the same, most "professionals" contradict each other with varying ideas about how a certain outcome should be achieved etc. This has lead me to believe that there's more than one way to skin a cat and no two dogs are the same. I've picked up bits of advice here and there and am kind of just feeling my way with Bo and hoping we are generally headed in the right direction.
One thing that all hunting dog trainers do seem to agree on is to get the very basic obedience commands rock solid before starting to get to deep on the actual hunting stuff.
I've worked on this a lot with Bo over the past 6 weeks and he's made it easy as he's a pretty intelligent pup (heading dog shining through I think) he will sit, lay down, wait for food, stop (heel) and is good on a lead, long and short, the wife has even taught him to shake hands..
I try to incorporate all these commands into his day as much as possible but still allow him to be a pup, I'm also adding distractions as we go to solidify the commands. Sit, Stop, and Laydown are all both voice and hand commands.

Living on a farm Bo is often with me during the day and it's allowed me to introduce him to some experiences and see how he reacts. I've taken it easy on this but still allowed him to have the experience. I took him straight out when I had only had him a week with zero training and stalked in on a fallow spiker that was grazing out in the open of one of our paddocks, the deer came in to about 15yds of us at one point and I made a video that I posted on my Facebook hunting page and got absolutely blown to bits by all the "know it all" dog handlers on there for introducing him to deer that young. In hindsight I do think it was a mistake though, I'm glad I didn't shoot the animal as it could have been a mistake introducing him to a downed animal without actually having any idea of how I wanted him to react, if he had spooked the deer it could have made him think he's supposed to spook deer also.
So, we buttoned off that and have kept him away from deer for now.
I have however had him on the farm quite a bit as I go about my day and he definately likes to give his nose a workout! One point we were measuring some grass at the back of the farm below a fenced off gully full of gorse and crap, he stopped and sat of his own accord at one point and began air scenting flat out whilst looking up into the scrub, his rail was pointing straight out like he was interested in what he could smell. I took a video of him doing this for reference but didn't think much of it. We moved on and as we got back to my truck a deer bolted from the scrub where we had been just a few minutes earlier and trotted away across the hill, I think he had definately smelt it but didn't know what it was at the time, I'm happy he didn't try investigate further
This is him sitting and air scenting that day

same name as my dog, bully x dogo

I thought it couldn't hurt to introduce Bo to some gentlemanly hunting so a few evenings now we have taken the 22-250 and parked up on a vantage point in search of a hare. The first Hare I shot with Bo I took him in on the long lead to find. I took a wide berth around where I knew it was and approached from the way I had seen it come hoping he would pick up its trail. Once I knew we were about where it had come I stopped him and got him to focus, eventually I knew he had picked up its trail and I allowed him to show me where to go whilst giving him his newest command "find" .He came off the trail at one point and we stopped and refocused again and eventually he took me right to it. I praised him heaps and gave him a pat, he gave the hare a good working over with his nose and licked some blood from it. I took out my Mercator and took the back steaks and back wheels off and gave him a few little bits of meat and praised him again. One thing I don't want him doing is thinking an animal is "his" and chewing on it willy nilly. This is Bo with his first find.

Top work.

I learned so much with my dog, I'm a firm believer in building relationship and experiences as a puppy. Nice to have a dog to trust you and you can trust how the dog is going to react. Something i learned too late.
Fixed alot of mistakes with my dog. Really nice to see how / why you are doing things and your thinking.
100% no two dogs are the same, even within the same breed. My hunting bitch works for her and not for me, she's introvert and headstrong.
Wifes dog just loves to please and will jobs for you because she wants to, that's the reward. Not because she has to.

Originally Posted by Ryan_Songhurst

Living on a farm Bo is often with me during the day and it's allowed me to introduce him to some experiences and see how he reacts. I've taken it easy on this but still allowed him to have the experience. I took him straight out when I had only had him a week with zero training and stalked in on a fallow spiker that was grazing out in the open of one of our paddocks, the deer came in to about 15yds of us at one point and I made a video that I posted on my Facebook hunting page and got absolutely blown to bits by all the "know it all" dog handlers on there for introducing him to deer that young. In hindsight I do think it was a mistake though, I'm glad I didn't shoot the animal as it could have been a mistake introducing him to a downed animal without actually having any idea of how I wanted him to react, if he had spooked the deer it could have made him think he's supposed to spook deer also.
So, we buttoned off that and have kept him away from deer for now.
I have however had him on the farm quite a bit as I go about my day and he definately likes to give his nose a workout! One point we were measuring some grass at the back of the farm below a fenced off gully full of gorse and crap, he stopped and sat of his own accord at one point and began air scenting flat out whilst looking up into the scrub, his rail was pointing straight out like he was interested in what he could smell. I took a video of him doing this for reference but didn't think much of it. We moved on and as we got back to my truck a deer bolted from the scrub where we had been just a few minutes earlier and trotted away across the hill, I think he had definately smelt it but didn't know what it was at the time, I'm happy he didn't try investigate further
This is him sitting and air scenting that day
Attachment 156475

THIS is part of the MOJO you two will develop bud.....your ability to read what dog does naturally and react accordingly...the more times you two do it sucessfully,the more ingrained and natural it will become....love your idea and style of doing so...the KISS method is always good.
last weekend I broke ALL the rules with Meg,now 6...we were having trouble getting in our feral sheep for docking...picture if you will 4 people none under 40...all huffing and puffing on steep hill paddocks and sheep making monkeys of us...I called out to wife to release Meg....she ran over to me and I unleashed controlled chaos on those sheep...Meg isnt allowed to bark or chase ANYTHING.....BUT with beardy genetics and good stop whistle...I let her go...stopped her short of sheep and the yappy bark broke out...and didnt stop for 15minutes...the sheep tried to bolt up hill past me...Meg took off and shoulder barged the leader off her silly woolly feet... then stopped and barked like mad...the rest came back to where they were supposed to be..tried it again,same result....then we got them to hill race and Meg stood by me and let the noise do the walking...sheep bolted again...Meg piss bowled leader again..called her back,stopped her,unleashed the noise,and sheep punched up hill and over brow...remeinded me of shepherds trial as young fella.....
took a bit to cool Meg down as was 30 degree day but it all worked out for the best.
she knows how to bark...and knows how to shut up too....some have suggested teaching them when to bark is easiest way to teach them when not too.
loving watching your journey...keep the posts coming.

A couple of hares later and I decided to see how he would go off the lead. I took him in to about 70 or 80 yds and then let him off the lead, this time I hadn't followed the trail where the hare had come from. I told him "find" and he kind of went off in a big loop, air scenting as he went, I literally saw the moment he got the wind, it was pretty cool seeing a pup doing exactly what you had hoped he would do, he got in pretty close to where the animal was and then he picked up the ground scent and went straight to it, again plenty of pats and a couple of tidbits of meat.
Attachment 156478

We've been working on some general manners around firearms and Bo will now sit to the side and behind me when I lay down with the rifle which is good. Now he's done a few hares I can tell he gets a little bit excited when the shit goes off as he knows what's next, nothing too crazy but he does stand up and has that air of anticipation about him, something to watch as don't want him getting too carried away or heading off without the find command first. He's now about 16 weeks old and so far has been doing everything right, he's very intelligent and is reasonably laid back for a pup which helps heaps. I hope to maybe start doing some stuff with deer when he's about 7 months old but I want to be 110% on all those commands. I've been telling him to stop and sit whilst he's off the lead in front of me and so far he's been pretty good at it, I've also added a "kissy sound" as another command for stop as it might come in handy rather than a voice command if in close quarters to a deer.


We went for a walk the other day to look at some new grass I had drilled a few weeks ago and had to pass through a bit of un used land that has tall grass in it and is used as a corridor by fallow in the evenings as they come into the farm, he was definately very interested in the smells he was getting from the little trail that Deer have worn through the grass, again I took it as a chance to use "stop" on him whilst I knew he was following a scent and he stopped on a dime and waited for the next move

nice looking doggie sounds smart as well

I have used feeding time for training. Make dogs fetch or track a scent, go back, come in, lay down all on hand signals. Used a dart pistol that fires shotgun primers to get pups used to 'bangs'.

Your grass looks good.

All the best horse trainers (I don't know any dog trainers) say " this is what works for me" - you'll seldom hear a really good one saying "thats not the way to do it" or criticizing another persons approach. This sort of thinking is also the way to lifelong learning and improvement of your own game.

Awesome reading!!

You’re dead right on there being more than one way to train your dog. You say you won’t need a bush specialist dog but if you do all the groundwork and get the obedience locked in you’ll end up with a dog that will be pretty handy in the bush anyway purely from time spent together/getting to know each other.

My current dog , I started out on the blueprint. Some of it didn’t work too well for me so I modified it to suit. You’ll end up making little adjustments all the time as you get to know the dog, it’s all part of the fun.