Puppy Hunting Training

[krausch]

I dont know if anyone else here is or has trained a bird dog for the field, but my pup is just about 5 months old now and im starting to take her out with me pheasant hunting.
Yesterday she got her first birds, we went to the public land by my house. She still doesnt retrieve, but once she gets the bird in her mouth she doesn't want to let it go. I figured for now, just getting her used to the shotgun is a big step. For now she doesn't seem to mind the sound. Im thinking just getting her out is good enough for now.
Does anyone else have some pointers on what to do training wise?
I appreciate any input i can get.

 

[tomojsg]

train her to properly fetch & retrieve on command like playing fetch at the park
then slowly work into the birds. bird toys would be ideal. make sure you do
obedience training with her also if your gonna take her hunting. advanced
obedience training is essential.

start training with a clicker. if she get it right reward her achievement.
click>high reward>praise>repeat. then start weaning her off the clicker
and so on until a simple praise is sufficient as a reward. check out the
nilif program it can be applied to any training & etc. hope this helped!