Upland Bird Dog: Teaching Backing and Honoring

Few things are as satisfying to a bird hunter as having a dog stop when birds get up wild and walking in to take a sleeper or two. Likewise, finding your dog naturally backing a pointing brace-mate at 30 yards is a special joy. Not only do you get a kick out of such performances, so do your hunting buddies. Conversely, an unruly adult dog busting birds or stealing points usually means a shorten hunt and a search for another partner.

I teach 6 month old puppies to whoa in front of their food dishes, releasing them with a head tap or a two blast whistle. By the time they're 9-10 months old they'll stand there 2 or more minutes.

I carry the same "Whoa" command into the yard with a check cord so that they'll stop on order. Come and whoa are the two commands my dogs learn early and well.

Among an amateur dog handler's most valuable training devices are automatic releasers and a pigeon loft and/or recall pen. These releasers are predictable and nearly fail safe. Most importantly, they let you train your dog with very little outside help. Most pro trainers have assistants; someone to plant a bird, another to bring a staunch dog into pointing position while the pro check-cords a young dog into a back and the first assistant flushes the bird. Very nice. But not exactly the way the average amateur has to go about it.

I start by teaching the stop-to-flush and then extend that into backing (honoring) another dog's point. I checkcord the dog through a field and pop pigeons from launchers, being careful that the dog can't smell the bird before he sees it. Highly visible pigeons, those with lots of white, work best. When the bird goes up, I whoa the dog on the checkcord. In a relatively short time, it whoas automatically when it sees the bird go up. At that point it's ready for the next step.

Next I position a plywood silhouette of a dog on point where it's not visible at a distance. I normally place them behind some bushes or around the end of a hedgerow. Plant a launcher in front of the silhouette. I checkcord my dog on a path that allows it to suddenly come upon the silhouette. As soon as the dog sees the silhouette, I pop the bird from the launcher. The dog does a normal stop-to-flush. It does't take many of these sessions- three or four- before the dog stops as soon as it sees the silhouette.

If you want to add frosting to the cake and have a broke, finished dog and a helper available, you can teach your dog to back through a retrieve. Simply set the broke dog up in front of the launcher and pop a pigeon or quail for your helper to kill while you restrain the backing dog. Backing through a retrieve may be a requirement for NAVHDA utility prize 1, it's certainly required of AKC Master Hunters. It's also proper hunting manners to let the pointing dog retrieve a downed bird and could avoid a dog fight.

One dog that I trained this way with a Brittany silhouette refused to back a Vizsla in the field. I finally concluded that it was the appearance difference. A dog won't back a breed it's not used to hunting with. I made another silhouette the size and shape of a Vizsla, painted it brown on one side and Weimaraner gray on the other. That solved the problem. My dog even backs GSPs naturally since I made that silhouette.

I make the silhouettes from half-inch exterior grade plywood. Just lie a dog down and draw around it. I get two from a 4 x 8 ft sheet. Put short spikes on the feet so that you can sink them into the ground. Paint them to match the dogs that you hunt with.

UplandBirdDog.com wish to thank sportsman, Bob Kane, for his excellent training article. Bob has been training bird dogs for over 30 years.

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