Heeeere’s Tilly

[17Hunter]

Meet Tilly. 10 month old female GWP. We got her from a gentleman in PA that, unfortunately, due to his health could no longer take care of her. Brought her to Michigan last Saturday to join my male shorthair, Dax, that is 9 months old.

What fun it has been working with both of these great dogs over the last few days. A shorthair and a wirehair, best of both worlds. Cannot wait for this fall!

[deseeker]

nice looking pup

[Steve007]

Excellent breed. While two individuals is too small number to draw any real conclusions, over time, we hope you will favor us with the differences between these two which you might attribute to breed rather than to personal characteristics. I hope you have a lot of time to put into training two young dogs of approximately the same age!

[17Hunter]

I thought a lot about that; the time and patience factor, but I have been waiting 17 years to get another pair of bird dogs, so yeah I’m ready. Or so I think!

I will be glad to report on their similarities and differences.

[Willie T]

Beautiful!

[Sharon]

Now you are going to be busy. Enjoy those dogs.

[DonF]

Boyu look at those eye's! She's ready!

[17Hunter]

Tilly has really taken to the water; much smoother than my shorthair. She is really coming along nicely.

[Sharon]

Isn't that great! LOL Enjoy.

[BlessedGirl]

Wow, love it!

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[MNTonester]

great looking gal. Fall should prove to be a great time for you all

[17Hunter]

Worked Tilly on some quail from a launcher last weekend and she really did a nice job.

She caught one of the quail after it launched, which wasnt ideal but was okay. I was shooting dummy rounds while she was chasing.

She brought it right back to me with a nice soft mouth, but as soon as i asked her to give it to me, she clamped down. She would not give up that bird. I finally got it from her, but the whole time she was growling, never tried to bite me. As soon as i got it from her she was completely fine; tail waggin, jumpin around all excited.

I have never gone through force fetch and honestly dont know a lot about the training; would that help in this situation?

[Steve007]

Worked Tilly on some quail from a launcher last weekend and she really did a nice job.

She caught one of the quail after it launched, which wasnt ideal but was okay. I was shooting dummy rounds while she was chasing.

She brought it right back to me with a nice soft mouth, but as soon as i asked her to give it to me, she clamped down. She would not give up that bird. I finally got it from her, but the whole time she was growling, never tried to bite me. As soon as i got it from her she was completely fine; tail waggin, jumpin around all excited.

I have never gone through force fetch and honestly dont know a lot about the training; would that help in this situation?

Yes, but how is she on canvas dummies? Might not be any reason to go through a full force training program. She just needs to understand the command of "leave it " (or whatever command you want to use for a release). One of my dogs was a natural retriever (GWP) and just needed a "take it" and "leave it", which you can even teach in short sections (note the "short") while sitting in a chair combined with some treats and praise.

On the other hand, maybe she hadn't just figured out what you want to do. Growling isn't always aggressive; sometimes it's kind of a playful thing and their way of talking. Depends on the dog. Practice with the dummy and see what happens. You can just press the lip against the tooth combined with the verbal command with most dogs to be followed by praise when you get a release, but teach it on non-birds first to get the point across.

[17Hunter]

She is usually pretty good. She loves to retrieve, so when she gets really amped up I will sometimes have to give a pinch on her flank and she will give the dummie.

[Steve007]

She is usually pretty good. She loves to retrieve, so when she gets really amped up I will sometimes have to give a pinch on her flank and she will give the dummie.

Do you give her a specific command to release, or just leave it to her? It isn't precisely fun; it is a command. There are certainly people who jump up and down over the merits of force fetch -- which is not to denigrate the benefits for some dogs and under some circumstances -- but it sounds like you just need more practice at teaching release as a specific command.

[17Hunter]

I use “give” as the command. I did not get her until she was 10 months old and she didn’t have the best life for her first 10 months.

[17Hunter]

Weather finally cooled down enough to get out to work both dogs on some ground that holds a small amount of wild pheasants. Tilly jumped a deer 50 yards from the truck and had herself a little chase. Hopefully she looses interest in those soon.

Worked the dogs three different spots; no birds, but it sure was nice getting them out.

The one big difference in shorthairs and wirehairs that I have noticed is, the wirehair has drive for anything that moves; fur or feather. My male shorthair pretty much sticks to the feathered critters.

[Willie T]

You will need to do some trash breaking if you don’t want her to run deer. Your wire hair is likely going to like the feel of fur in her mouth just as much as feathers. At least that is certainly the case with both my Pudelpointers, which are one of the foundation breeds of wire hair’s.

[jmez]

You need to put a stop to that right now. Every time it happens it will get worse. Pretty soon she'll be hunting deer.

I would use an electric collar.

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[Sharon]

X2

[17Hunter]

She is e-collar trained and was corrected. That is why I am hopeful she wont fool with them. So far, so good.

She had a great day on Saturday; got in to a good batch of woodcock. She had 10-12 flushes and her point is starting to develop nicely. She had a great retrieve on 1 bird that I shot for her.

She did jump a rabbit and I was able to call her off that with “leave it”.

[clbrown23]

Enjoyed reading how your ( late coming to you ) GWP is coming along. She is a good looking pup, will be picking up my first GWP this weekend.

[17Hunter]

Its been awhile, so a quick update on the wirehair, Tilly. She just turned 2 and we have been working on steadiness, Whoa board, flushing pigeons from the whoa board and 1 session of Whoa while on point. She is really handling great and has steadied up fairly effortlessly. I think it’s mostly just been a natural progression, nothing I have really trained. My male shorthair on the other hand, has been a handful. That dog gets so fired up around birds, his steadiness, quite frankly sucks. Summer project with him. I will gladly accept any advice on his steadiness. I am using a belly band and whoa board. Trying to be patient, but God is testing me with this dog. He also just turned 2.

[deseeker]

Sounds like Tilly is coming along great. Good luck with your other dog. Thanks for the update and keep gettin' those dogs ready for bird season

[17Hunter]

Our last run before bird season opens next Sunday. Started out kinda rough for the german dog, but redeemed herself about 30 minutes later with a nice point on a woodcock.

[Sharon]

Yes quills are annoying but not as bad as it could be.
I had a dog accidently startle a mother deer whose fawn was nearby . The deer attacked and the dog had a huge tear along her side which also pierced her lungs. ( Yes she kept hunting until I noticed it. ) Lots of big bucks to fix that .

[17Hunter]

Pre-season run last night for Tilly in an area that actually has wild pheasants here in MI. She had 3 finds and got 2 of them pointed. Grouse and woodcock season opens the 15th

IMG_7708.jpeg

[Sharon]

Thanks for the pics. You are so fortunate to have a fine dog like that and to be able to get out yourself. Enjoy!

[deseeker]

Good for Tilly!!

[NEhomer]

Great stuff, thanks for sharing.

Were you able to get the quills out in the field or the vets?

[17Hunter]

Yes, in the field. I carry a small pair of needle nose and a hemostat just for that purpose. Lots of porcupines in our grouse country.

[17Hunter]

Despite the hot and dry weather, had a pretty decent 5 days in ND chasing sharptails. We put up a lot of singles and doubles, with only one small covey of 6. Dogs had a really hard time handling the singles. They bumped quite a few single birds. I know scenting was tough, but would have liked to have seen a little better dog work on some of our walks.

[NEhomer]

Sounds like a worthwhile trip. Thanks for sharing the pics.

[Sharon]

Well done Tilly.