Help with Lab

Vegeta

Hey all earlier in the year we bought a trained Labrador. He is a joy to shoot with.

Unfortunately he has started to develop a bit of a nasty habit in the last few weeks. My brother and I both shoot with semi autos.

He is going mad for spent cases and is ignoring the direction of the shot and not marking birds properly. If we fire a shot he will watch for carts coming out of the gun and if left unchecked he will retrieve them.

Now other than switching to an O/U does anyone have some advice on correcting this?

We were thinking some back to basics. Work on steadiness a bit again until we are confident in it. He's usually pretty solid, dropping dummies in front of him and he will leave them be. Once we're happy with that.

Bring out my dad's S/S.

Make dog sit at heel.
Holding a dummy tell dog to Mark
Throw dummy and fire while dummy is in the air (no point in using dummy launcher as he knows there's no gun for carts to come out of)
Hopefully dog will watch dummy and not look for spent carts (will be none out of S/S) anyway
Then give fetch command

Do this until the dog is doing it perfectly. Rewarding appropriately.

Then introduce the semi again slowly

Anyone have some tips or better idea??

mallards

I would use the semi. Slap the dummy so the dog pays attention throw then shoot as the dog watches it fall. I would say with enough practice he should stay focused on the dummy. I take it he must be close to you when doing this, maybe a duck hide? If so let him get a better view of the incoming duck. It won't put them off coming in and any dog worth its salt will be mad keen to keep their eyes on the bird.

Mallards.

Vegeta

mallards wrote: »

I would use the semi. Slap the dummy so the dog pays attention throw then shoot as the dog watches it fall. I would say with enough practice he should stay focused on the dummy. I take it he must be close to you when doing this, maybe a duck hide? If so let him get a better view of the incoming duck. It won't put them off coming in and any dog worth its salt will be mad keen to keep their eyes on the bird.

Mallards.

Yup he is for retrieving and limited hunting. So he is right next to my brother the majority of the time at heel or sitting down in a hide for duck.

What we need to do is really get it ingrained that when you shoot you should be looking for a bird not the spent cases.

What we find is that if you shoot a duck, it will make a splash when it hits the water and that is enough to take his attention off the cartridge and make him eager to fetch the bird.

When shooting on dryer land, say pigeon shooting etc. If you fire a shot and miss (as I am known to do) he will search for the cartridge if you don't prevent him, you can see him eyeing them up.

It happened yesterday that my brother shot a teal out of a small pond, teal landed on the ground and the dog ignored the bird and went straight for the cartridges. My brother had to send him on a blind retrieve and once on the scent he got the duck no problem but we are afraid we will lose birds due to this in the future so want to cut it out now asap.

Will see how he responds to the semi and a dummy. May have to take it a few steps back if that doesn't go well.

I must get my brother to pick up all his spent cases immediately after he shoots too so the temptation is never there for very long.

mallards

Is he in a position to see the incoming duck or pigeon?

Vegeta

mallards wrote: »

Is he in a position to see the incoming duck or pigeon?

Most definitely. We don't use a hide when duck shooting, generally wearing full camo so the dog has an unrestricted view

mallards

As he goes on I think the penny will drop if he sees duck or hears them coming in he will get a retrieve. This will keep him occumpied the whole hunt and he won't bother with the cartridges. Good Luck.

Mallards.

greenpeter

Remember clay shooting in the summer a guy was using a semi with a small net on the breach for collecting spent cartridges. It was very tidy mite be a easy option if you could get your hands on one

pullandbang

greenpeter wrote: »

Remember clay shooting in the summer a guy was using a semi with a small net on the breach for collecting spent cartridges. It was very tidy mite be a easy option if you could get your hands on one

What about this from Cabelas? Never used one or even seen one, but if it does what it says on the tin, then EVERY semi auto user should have one.