Indians For Guns

Re: Happy Thanksgiving
by Vikram » Sat Nov 28, 2009 6:21
Great dogs,GWPs.Do you train your dogs? A member of ours who is not very active is quite passionate about dog training and trains a lot.In UK of course.A lot of our members are into dogs.Only, the art of training a gun dog and shooting and retrieving is almost lost. If you could put up any pics, that will be grand.Thank you.

In delayed response to the above request,I wiil try to post photos and info and will add more photos if this works.

First of all, let me that that I have a wide background in many dog sports (17 champion conformation dogs, judging, 13 obedience titles, a Schutzhund title, plus hunt tests and field trials)and bird hunting with your dog is the MOST fun you can have with a dog. I do train my own dogs and compete, but just rambling around in the field looking for birds is great. Many men have said "I'd rather go hunting without my gun than without my dog". Any dog guy would agree. I hunt upland birds (quail, chukar, pheasant, woodcock), not waterfowl. My dogs are all house (and office) dogs; old theories that you have to keep hunting dogs outside are false.


Here is my Field Champion Demi, now #4 German Wirehaired Pointer in the country,




My Gordon Setter Covey and I. Covey has most of his Field Championship, a Senior Hunter title (highest score at the Gordon National Hunt Test in the last three years) and an obedience title as well.




This is Covey in a modified "pretzel point". Sometimes a good dog wil be racing along, catch a faint whiff of bird scent, skid, spin and and "pretzel" point. Very neat to see.



Let's see if this posts. More to come. If it is in any way possible (I realize bird hunting is limited in India) and if you are a "dog guy", you will have a great time working with and hunting your dog.

Here is a picture of myself (on left ) and two elderly friends with dogs that are NOT mine.I post it because, while I have highly-bred competition pointing dogs,this is not required to have a good time and to do well in the field.

The center dog is an Airedale. He is actually a Schutzhund III (guard dog title), but he hunts up a storm .He is a flushing dog,not a pointer.The dog on the right is a Wirehaired Pointing Griffon (not the same breed as my GWP by a WIDE margin). She is a very close-working stodgy dog, but she suits her owner well and she does a good job for him.

Many dogs, even cross- breds, can hunt. A friend of mine hunts pheasant very effectively over his Beagle! Not a retriever, but she find birds.

Hi Steve,

Thank you very much for an absolute treat.Trust you had a great Christmas day. I did not expect you to turnout to be such an authority on dogs and dog training. Completely agree with you about the pleasure of being afield with a well trained canine companion,with or without a gun.

Blimey,an Airedale as a bird dog! I heard of similar nuggets. A friend of a member here in UK, found a shot and wounded vixen,tried to put it out of it's misery, then she tried to lick his hand.He just didn't have the heart to finish her off and took her home.Long story cut short, he goes rough shooting, the vixen competes with the Lab to retrieve! He persevered against moaning neighbours about a fox in the neighbourhood.

Please,please,please.Do post about your dogs,training methods or anything you would like to come up and share with us.If there are any articles written by you or other resources you think would be of interest,them too,please. The art of gun dogs might have virtually died out in India.But, it never too late to rekindle the spark.

Thank you once again for the wonderful pictures and the story behind them.

Best-
Vikram

Thanx Steve007 for all the information.

Great pics Steve. Love the dogs.

Regards

Steve007 thank you for a lovely post, some beautiful dogs you & your friends have there!

Cheers!
Abhijeet

Thank you Steve! Always a pleasure to see dogs working!
Regards,
Yaj.

Great post Steve and wonderful Dogs do post more pictures and some tips on selecting and training dogs.

Vikram - Do you have pictures of the Vixen?

Best

reviving this thread, i've got a 6 month old pit bull/rottweiler mix named "ranger" ("ranger leads the way") i'm not training him as anything special, just as a friend and companion on walks and around the house. in spite of what people say, and think of pit bulls ranger is a gentleman dog, learning good manners and decorum as a puppy. we've got two females from the same litter, and the mother also in the house and i don't want any more puppies, these are enough, so in a couple of weeks, as soon as the vet says he's old enough, ranger will be "fixed" so he'll be safe around the females.

-- Thu Feb 11, 2010 10:44 am --

I don't know how I missed this post, Awesome dogs Steve. Please post some more pics of your dogs and keep visiting.

-Inder

some good working dogs, as there can be no other enjoyment then watching working dogs doing their thing. thankyou

Gunnera4,

I love both the breeds,Pits and Rottweilers,both much maligned unjustly in my view. I have no use for an aggressive dog but why not a dog that can take care of itself and its family? Would love to see the pics of them if you can.Thanks.

Best-
Vikram

i'll have to get a digital camera for pics, both of the dogs and guns, ranger is the biggest of the litter, white with medium brown markings. he's friendly but has growled at "odd looking" strangers in the neighborhood, ones i also did not like the look of, though he's not gone on attack, just a "keep your distance" warning growl that he doesn't do for ordinary passers by.

Looking forward to pictures gunner..

best

My google search says it snows in certain parts of India. Birdhunting here is mostly a cold weather sport, and we definitely hunt in the snow. Wirehairs are terrific swimmers (useful as duck dogs), but the loose pads which open up like a snorkel diver's fins in the water mean they can more easily pick up ice balls in their paws. So we use vaseline or "musher's choice" wax between toes and paw sections to prevent that.

Here are Demi and myself post-hunt. The little birds are American bobwhite quail. There are a couple of chukar partridge there (Tibetan birds;those are chukar above with my Gordon) and a hen pheasant (originally Chinese). Very fine eating! Used a 16g. grade III Browning Citori for this hunt, but will go out tomorrow (snow predicted!) with a 20g. Browning BSS Sporter. SUV is a Ford Expedition. Note GunVault space expander on which the crates reside.

Nice SetUp Steve, we can only dream about doing this as Hunting is banned in INDIA. I've hunted once with dogs in US, One was a Lab and other was GSP. I can't describe the experience in words.

Please keep posting.

-Inder