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Teaching to BackBy Dave KingThe gentleman’s shooting dog is one that knows how to hunt and knows how to honor another dogs point. Some of the reasons for honoring are… · It saves from busting birds · It helps from causing bad habits and · It just looks nice when a dog slams on the breaks and points the other dog with intensity. There are many ways to teach your dog to back. This one has worked well for me and it is not expensive. For this method there are a few things that you need. 1) A couple of dog silhouettes (I’ll explain later) 2) Some white and black spray paint 3) A bird launcher (recommended but not necessary) 4) A blank pistol 5) A few pigeons 6) A check cored 7) And finally a field that is relatively open with some bushes to hid the silhouettes The Silhouette First off you need to run to Home Depot and buy yourself a big sheet of half-inch plywood. This is what you are going to make your “pointing” dogs out of. Then grab a pencil and explore your artistic side. You are going to want to draw the outline of a dog on point on your piece of plywood. Make sure that it is about the same size as a real dog and make sure it looks pretty close to what a dog looks like. You’ll want to cut the legs at a point so you can stick the silhouette into the ground. I like to make two or three different silhouettes. I usually make a pointer and a shorthair. As funny as it may seem, a dog will point what it is used seeing so if you only throw a pointer silhouette out there it may not honor a shorthair. Now you need to get out the skill saw and cut out the silhouettes. Once the dogs are cut out grab your WHITE paint and paint the whole silhouette. The reason we use white instead of other dog colors is that white stands out better. After the paint dries grab the BLACK paint and paint in the dog’s features such as the ears, nose and maybe a spot on the side. Now that you are finished, stand back and admire your work. It is time to get into the field and train. In The Field The work begins! First off if you want to save some money get a buddy to help you so you don’t have to buy bird launchers. If you need to obtain a launcher, all the big mail order catalogs sell them. Take your silhouettes and plant them behind some bushes in the field. This way the dog won’t see them until he is right on it. Also make sure that the dog will be able to see them clearly when they get to it. After planting a couple of silhouettes in different areas in the field grab some pigeons and put them in your buddies vest so the dog won’t smell them, or have you bird launchers placed out in front of the silhouettes. Now check cored your dog upwind making sure the dog can’t smell anything and work your dog into the silhouette. As soon as the dog is in sight of the silhouette tell them “Whoa!”. Then while you are holding on to the dog have your buddy go in and flush the bird by throwing one out of his vest or triggering the launcher. Then instantly fire the blank pistol and knock over the silhouette so it’s laying flat on the ground. Don’t let the dog chase the bird. Turn directions and head to the next silhouette and repeat the process. After you have taken out all the silhouettes chain up the dog and go set the silhouettes up again, only this time change the location. If you use the same spot over and over again the dog will just point the bush it knows the silhouette is behind. After three or four sessions your dog will be an honoring machine and it will be time to test them with a real dog. It may take a little time to make the transfer from a fake dog to a real dog but it won’t be long. Just give them a little reminder with “whoa” when they see the other dog. I hope this answers some questions on how to teach a dog to honor and hopefully by following this your dog will be a gentleman’s shooting dog too.
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