Quartering

Since I want to get a new dog in the near future, I figured I should prove to myself that I've got what it takes to do the training. I've been a bit resistant to doing any "formal" hunting training with Bandit because, well, he's a terrier. I no longer care. It's fun for me. It's fun for him. Other people get a kick out of it. Why not?

I've decided it's time I put some real effort into training Bandit to quarter properly in the field. He has little to no natural quartering instinct, so I know I've got my work cut out for me. When he was a pup, I did some work with a check cord to teach him to turn on the whistle, but never really taught him to quarter on his own.

All the techniques I've seen in videos and books calls for assistants and birds, neither of which I have. I've improvised by using dummies in conjunction with pheasant wings and scent. I start out by planting them in the field, then I work Bandit into the wind until he finds them all. Then I continue casting him side to side with two whistle toots, every once in a while tooting the whistle twice and throwing a dummy in the opposite direction.

He's getting the idea, but I think it's going to take several more lessons for it to sink in. I may try to enlist the help of my wife and son over the weekend to really drill the lessons home. Currently he's going about 10 yards to the left and right, and I need to double that.

I haven't the slightest idea how to acquire pigeons or quail for training, so I guess the dummies are going to have to suffice.

I know I've got to get Bandit on more birds before the end of the season, so I'm hoping to get him quartering well, then parlay that over to some game farm work in which he has some good success while quartering.

The one thing that I have in my favor is that Bandit is very mentally tough, and very tolerant of my half-assed training methods. When there are birds (or rabbits or squirrels or deer or...) around, nothing can break his spirit.