Bird Dogs: Pump ‘em Up! How do you get your gun dog revved for the chase?

On a recent hunt a bunch of us pulled into a hunting spot, turned the dogs loose and got ready to hunt ‘em up.

I proceeded to get my springer, Hunter, all wound up and in a fight’en mood for those tricky, hard running roosters. I used all those words that really get Hunter going: “Where’re the birds Hunter?” “Want to go hunting?” “What’s that?” I’ll also scruff up his head with my hand, lift him up some by the chest and rustle my foot in the brush.

How do you get your gun dog pumped for the hunt?

I’d even pull up my gun in a mock swing on a bird. That really gets him leaping in the air, twirling around, standing out looking for a bird, barking and generally whipped into a bird hunting frenzy.

One fellow hunter asked “whaz up?”

“I’m inciting the Hunter,” I exclaimed.

I want my dog to know I’m very excited for the hunt and that he should be excited too…….more excited than he usually is. I want to imbue my enthusiasm into him. I think this ritual gets my dogs more excited to hunt, more intense and preps them more for the hunting rigors to come.

“Inciting” helps get my dogs to the top of their game, and me too. Springers are energetic to begin with, but I really think inciting them gets them to the next level of enthusiasm.

What do you do to get your dog pumped up for the hunt or do you think such a ritual will get your dog too wound up and out of control?

Tags: hunting dog enthusiasm

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011 and is filed under Dogs, Hunting, Pheasants, Pheasants Forever. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.