 I had a fun weekend grouse hunting and watching the development of Remington, a 12 month old Brittany I have been training. To date we have focused on birds in the training field (pigeons, bobwhite quail, and chukars). This weekend we went out and hunted wild blue grouse (dusky grouse). Remington is a dog that I had to work with very carefully on noise sensitivity issues. I could tell from the outset that he was very sensitive to loud noises, so I took it very carefully. On the plus side he was very keen on birds, so I was able to use his interest in birds to overcome his aversion to loud noises, and have eventually been able to work up to the shotgun.
This weekend was his first wild bird hunt, and his first hunt in tall dense cover where he couldn’t see me. Remington made a lot of progress this weekend; I saw him go from a dog, crazy with excitement running wild through the forest and getting himself lost, to a dog that stayed within range and was actively hunting with me looking for birds.
I used the Garmin GPS collar on the dog and was able to see exactly what he was doing on the first hunt. This was really interesting. We started out working through an upper elevation aspen/Doug fir transition area that had been selectively logged. Remington started out wild with excitement. I was able to call him back to me several times for the first ¼ mile before he blew out of the area in a frenzy. I watched what he was doing on the GPS unit. He went part way back to the truck then ran back and forth perpendicular to our direction of travel, ranging 500 – 600 yards back and forth. Based on how fast he was running and the fact that he was just running back and forth in practically a straight line it didn’t seem like he was hunting, more like he was in a brain spastic frenzy and then got lost. After ~20 minutes he found the truck and sat under it waiting for me. Thanks to the Garmin, I didn’t have to worry about where he was I just monitored what he was doing, then went to him.
I put him in up in the dog box in the truck and went hunting for a couple of hours with another dog. When I got back, he seemed anxious to go again, but had lost the crazed look in his eyes. We went out and he was like a whole new dog. It was as if he had sat in the kennel and thought about what he was going to do next time he got a chance. He stayed within a reasonable range for the thickness of the cover and checked back often, he responded to my commands, and seemed to be hunting with me. Best of all, when I did have a chance to shoot a grouse, he was right there wanting in on the action. My other dog, a lab, located and flushed the grouse, but Remington was quickly there at the shot looking for the downed bird he has come to expect at the sound of a gunshot.
The next day the lessons seemed to have stuck. From the outset, Remington was out looking for birds, yet he stayed within range, followed my directions and checked in often. Unfortunately after a hard day of grouse hunting we didn’t find any birds. It is looking like a tough blue grouse season this year. Nevertheless, it was exciting to see this young Brittany developing into a good field dog and asset to the hunting team. He has a ways to go, but this was a great start and it was fun to watch his progress.
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