Gents,

I have a german wirehair we got last october at 8months old.

She was a show dog that developed an underbite, so the breeder left her in a crate for those 8 months before my wife found/bought her.

so we started from zero last October. The house breaking, sit, stay, heel, come, was very easy to teach her.

once her personality started to really develop and she got comfortable living here, her intelligence and prey drive also started to show.

This may be the most brilliant dog i've ever owned, and she has the highest prey drive i've ever seen. her concentration is unreal, she learns new things exceptionally fast, and there is nothing she loves more than tearing ass through grass, brush, trees, etc... looking for birds.

now, i am not a bird hunter. i prefer to hunt things with hooves and antlers. but i am not oopposed to trying my luck at some birds out in eastern CO.

but mainly, since her drive is so strong and she is so intelligent...i want to direct more real bird dog training to help her develop her instincts and keep her mind busy, as she gets bored easily while i'm on the computer working all day. luckily i work from home so she hasnt' destroyed my house.

I have a couple of GUN DOG (pointing dogs) dvd's with Bob West as the trainer. I watched the beginner one, and we have accidentally done basically everything on that DVD. the basic commands, introducing the dog to environments she may encounter in the field (she loves tall grass, running through forests, swimming, water, mud, does not care), etc...

I have the advanced dvd in the same set, need to order the intermediate one.

are there other good books or DVDs you would recommend? This will be my first time training a hunting dog, and a pointer at that (pops had a well trained black lab for ducks when i was a kid, but i didnt do any of the training).

thank you
cooper

Take a look at "The best way to train your Gun Dog, by Bill Tarrant. Oldie, but very essential IMHO.

If you´re an e-collar user, check George Hickox´s DVD´s on the subject. They´re pretty helpfull too.

Rick and Ronnie Smith of the Delmar Smith family have had a lot of success training pointing dogs.

I will suggest that you cross the border into Nebraska - eastern Colorado can be okay for pheasants, but when its ok Nebrasa is better and its not that much farther.

thank you both

I trained a GSP from a pup. He turned out into an outstanding pheasant/quail dog.

I also retrained a "bad" Chesapeake Bay Retrieve. She became a fantastic duck dog.

Regardless of the method you use, always remember ARC. Associate, Repeat, Consistency.

Associate a command with an action.

Repeat it often,

Consistently reward/correct/punish based upon the dog's response to the command.

Have fun. Both my dog's have "aged out" years ago, but some of the best memories of my hunting life have involved those dogs.

They can teach you more about hunting and loyalty than you realize, if you pay attention.

BH63