That Important First Year

 by Lynn Dee Galey

Blending my profession and my lifetime with birddogs, I believe that puppies are like children regarding the plasticity of the brain, skill development, and social skills. For example, studies show that in children, learning skills such as language and music before the age of 5 results in a higher level of proficiency later.  For a birddog puppy, the first 12 months are the window of opportunity of their lifetime and lay the foundation for what’s to come.

Get your puppy into the woods or out onto the prairie and spend as much time out there as possible. Backyard obedience or trots around the neighborhood are important for all puppies but the classroom for a birddog is in bird habitat. Don’t limit it to hunting season;  learning happens year-round, every time they are out. At 2-4 months they are still small and running on trails is fine but by 5-6 months they should be starting to get into brush and explore.

These early adventures are also when you and pup expand your relationship into a hunting partnership. It is part of my dog’s job to keep track of where I am just like keeping track of them is part of mine. Teamwork to me is quiet.  It means the dog reads your body language so that even as they range out they notice you turning to look at a patch of cover and they swing into it without a word spoken. When you call the dog in to take a water break for both of you, they should learn it means hang here with me and relax for a bit.

Puppies are sponges and soak up the lessons learned in actual habitat. Smells, textures, sounds, wind, and variety in vegetation are recorded on the blank slate so that they become background and won’t interfere with the later more specific experiences of locating and handling bird scent.  

Bird contacts are the top layer of skill development. Skill in finding and handling birds is cumulative: every bird smelled, seen, and heard teaches a lesson. We want pup to contact as many wild birds as possible to begin to build the knowledge base. I have found that this bird contact piece between 6-10 months of age cannot be overlooked for a dog to reach its potential. It takes commitment on the part of the owner to provide the opportunities but is a piece of the puzzle that is a must.

Wild bird contact is where instinct interfaces with experience and pup begins to show us what they’ve got. In the long term, the ability to read cover, use the wind, nose power and the intelligence to apply it all to find birds does the sorting out of which dogs are good, best or just happy to be along.

 

The first 12 months pass quickly.  Don't miss out.