Swords Part I

As I ventured down the road of Vizsla ownership one aspect of Vizslatude I planned to address was hunting. Having never trained a bird dog before, I had joined the NAVHDA, due to the active nature of its members in organizing group training days. I initially envisioned the journey with Bounce as with many other of my hobbies to be one of trial and error. The NAVHDA group that I joined has held clinics opening up a few of the options that lay aheand and the members were very helpful on getting me off on the right foot. Aside from being warm and pleasant people, they helped provide initial bird exposure, taking extra time to help get Bounce from fearful of these crazy feathered things to curious, and even sending me home with a quail for her to continue learning about. The quail was supposed to live for a week, or until bounce did it in, but instead survived the dogs and now has been residing in a bird pen for a few months, with a host to of other tenants moving in.

My experience with NAVHDA also taught me that outside critique helps me identify unforeseen issues, and take advantage of other peoples experience. After talking to another owner that had made the transfer from the ring to the AKC hunt test and field trials, I was pointed to a trainer that seems to have the approach that I was looking for: to training me to train my dog, leaving me active in the process.

A reoccurring theme that I have seen in gun dog training is managing double edged swords. My initial exposure to the concept of double edged swords in training arose from a NAVHDA Versatile Hunting Dog Magazine article on training Pointing vs Tracking, where the two processes have a the same objective thus easily confusing for the dog.

The nature of the Bouncing Fireball's training has been an interesting series of double edged swords. Training as a whole even revealed itself to be a double edged sword. The double edged sword always presents two paths to a common goal. Each path has different obstacles; some detrimental, some trivial. These swords manifested themselves in Bounce's Sensitivity, Range, Bird Exposure, and Structured Training. The nature of Bounces obstacles in training, were promising indicators in addition to barriers to progress.

Sensitivity
First, Bounce was, and still is, sensitive to new things. This has resulted in her needing some extra effort so she does not become skiddish and shut down when everyday things encroach her comfort zone. More importantly, her sensitivity needs to be mitigated such that she is not overwhelmed in hunting situations. Simultaneously, her sensitivity is an asset. She is very perceptive and picks up quickly on changes and details, resulting in fast learning. So my objective with her sensitivity is to boost her confidence, rather than to desensitize her.

Range
Second, Bounce's range is another divide. As a result from Bounce's sensitivity, she had once taken off after being spooked by the sudden appearance of a mountain biker. It took me a good 5 hours to find her; I quickly invested in a Garmin Astro. Since acquiring the Astro, her range has increased. Initially, I assumed her added range was due to her gaining confidence and taking interest in seeking birds. Upon starting to work with a trainer recently, who views the GPS as a crutch, he pointed out it interferes with my lack of presence when she has gone "too far", she will range further, since I am able to follow her and not reinforce her need to keep track of me. Now, I am more conscientious regarding when her range becomes excessive to stop and wait her out.

Bird Exposure
Third, pen raised vs no birds. I get that wild birds are the best teacher, like driving a real car is a better experience that learning to drive in a simulator. Moreover, pen raised quail, due to their own inexperience, and limited flight conditioning, are asking to get caught. Once again we reached a crux.

Bounce had been chasing a grouse around one of our hikes, bumping into it three times this spring. Initially, she didn't event know what it was, but has since gotten really excited. In order to let the grouse get stupider and Bounce to be less frustrated, we have been avoiding the grouse for a while and started working some not-so flight conditioned quail from my small bird pen. Bounce would go crazy every time I brought a bird out, tearing about the field. Gradually she was finding the birds faster and faster when I planted them, yet found less and less as we were out in the wild.

Once again, the trainer picked up on something right away, even after Bounce had been off birds for two weeks. While I watered her in the shade, he set out a couple chukkar. Immediately upon release, Bounce took off tracking the foot scent of the trainer right into the first bird. She proceeded to follow his foot scent to the second bird, but Bounce was in for a surprise, wisely, the trainer had thrown the dizzied bird into a bush several feet away from the end of his scent, and as she hit the end of his scent and didn't find a thing. She was persistent and looped around until she caught bird scent and eventually located the bird.