Duck Retrieval or Scent Tracking?

[kbuchanan66]

So summer is coming up and I am looking into starting Barron in a sport. The 2 that come to mind are because of natural instincts I see in him.

Duck Retrieval- last summer he was swimming at 3 months and retrieving sticks. We hunt and are looking into duck hunting so naturally this seems like a good idea!

Scent Tracking- it is winter and we have 3 feet of snow. As a game we throw Kubasa and cheese chunks in the deep snow and release the dogs. Barron is always beating my lab to each tiny morsel that is buried. He has also managed to find a jack rabbit den and the local fox den which are both down the walking trail we take daily. He is constantly finding apple cores and cardboard that is buried in the snow. He has one crazy sniffer.

Anyways just wondering how many of you have mastiffs in either sport?

 

[Geisthexe]

I use to have a Presa that tracked for sport and for Search n Rescue

My old my Presa I have now he use to Coon Hunt funny to watch him run with the hounds. But we did for fun just to train him.

I am excited to hear your stories on which ever you do with your mastiff.

 

[Mooshi's Mummy]

So summer is coming up and I am looking into starting Barron in a sport. The 2 that come to mind are because of natural instincts I see in him.

Duck Retrieval- last summer he was swimming at 3 months and retrieving sticks. We hunt and are looking into duck hunting so naturally this seems like a good idea!

Scent Tracking- it is winter and we have 3 feet of snow. As a game we throw Kubasa and cheese chunks in the deep snow and release the dogs. Barron is always beating my lab to each tiny morsel that is buried. He has also managed to find a jack rabbit den and the local fox den which are both down the walking trail we take daily. He is constantly finding apple cores and cardboard that is buried in the snow. He has one crazy sniffer.

Anyways just wondering how many of you have mastiffs in either sport?

I do the same thing with my TM and Akita. I chop up small bits of sausage and cheese and we play 'find it'. My Akita wins hands down, Its weird but Mooshi seems to be more of a sight dog than scent dog, often she will walk past a bit of whatever I am using until she see's it. Bear my Akita has a great sence of smell and rarely relies on his sight.

 

[JacksTheDog]

My father is training a bird dog right now. I just told him that I taught Jacks to fetch and he laughs and says good however every time we shoot a duck he will have eaten it by the time he gets it to the boat.... I kind of think he has a point.

 

[Duetsche_Doggen]

I say both, though I'm leaning towards the water foul, free food, lol.

I want to do PSA with Stone but that will depend on how he matures, otherwise agility, or possibly weight pull ( if he can get over his fears)

 

[kbuchanan66]

The biggest issue with the Retrieval is the not eating the bird. Lol although he already knows the "wait to eat that" command. We are starting to put the treat in his lips and telling him to wait. Time will tell I suppose.

Now with the tracking. Matt (Boyfriend) usually hides out side when Barron is off in the bush. Usually burrying himself in the snow behind a snow mound. When Barron comes out to look at us and just finds me he immediatly puts his nose in the air and finds his way to matts trail(There are many trails in the snow from anything to deer, fox, rabbit, mice and other dogs and poeple) and usually takes him no longer than a minute to find him. There are just odd things like that. As well as he has his nose in any trail that we come across and he follows them all the way to the bush line. He doesn't go any farther though as he doesn't like us out of his sight for long.

Decisions Desicions. We may just start doing both and see which he picks up; on the best.

 

[ruthcatrin]

Both lol

Tracking is something that can be done year round, which is something to consider.....

 

[STEVSH]

We had a dalmation when I was a kid that was fabulous at partridge hunting. People would laugh when they saw her, because they are supposed to be non-sporting dogs. But that was the one problem with Holly. She never wanted to let go of the bird. She'd bring it back, but a tug of war would ensue.

Because Topaz is half weimaraner, I would love to get her into bird hunting as well. She dives off the dock at our cabin and grabs sticks no problem. However, I think we would have the same problem that we had with Holly if it were a bird. She would have it eaten by the time she brought it back. Maybe we should just stay with sticks and tennis balls

 

[Duetsche_Doggen]

I'd love to do hunting with my dogs but neither have the stamina for it. And Stone is just too hard mouthed.

 

[kbuchanan66]

We had a dalmation when I was a kid that was fabulous at partridge hunting. People would laugh when they saw her, because they are supposed to be non-sporting dogs. But that was the one problem with Holly. She never wanted to let go of the bird. She'd bring it back, but a tug of war would ensue.

Because Topaz is half weimaraner, I would love to get her into bird hunting as well. She dives off the dock at our cabin and grabs sticks no problem. However, I think we would have the same problem that we had with Holly if it were a bird. She would have it eaten by the time she brought it back. Maybe we should just stay with sticks and tennis balls

Yup bird dogs got some definate self control that is for sure

 

[kbuchanan66]

This weekend we worked on Tracking with Barron. What we did was make him look one way and keep his attention. The other person threw his big blue ball (which smells like blue rasberry) into the deep snow in the bush (we threw it instead of walking it some where so that there was no real visual or trail directly to the ball). We would let him go and say "find it" than point in the general direction. Low and behold he found the ball every time and had to go bobbing for it in the snow.

Next weekend I believe we are going to try a "Search and Rescue" scenario by letting one of us go hide in the snowy bush 5 mins before we take Barron to the trail. See if he can track us by trail. I also believe we will start taking an Article of clothing we recently worn so he can connect the scent item with the scent trail.

Anyone have any advise on training techiques for tracking?

 

[northernmastiff]

Duck retrieval is not the best for a dog that doesn't have a soft mouth. Labs hold birds properly without too much training but most dogs will bite into it. If you don't mind having bite marks, then I would love to see him retrieving ducks but if you do, you may want to choose a different sport for him since it is really hard to teach soft mouth to a dog.

 

[kbuchanan66]

Duck retrieval is not the best for a dog that doesn't have a soft mouth. Labs hold birds properly without too much training but most dogs will bite into it. If you don't mind having bite marks, then I would love to see him retrieving ducks but if you do, you may want to choose a different sport for him since it is really hard to teach soft mouth to a dog.

Barron actually has a pretty soft mouth. I haven't tried him with anything flesh like though.

 

[kbuchanan66]

Update on this topic. I was worried that all the work we did with Barron last year with water would not hold up after 7 months of winter. Well I am pretty sure that I was wrong. The ditches are full of water and Barron is constantly in it. We threw his rubber ball in the big ditch full of water and coincidently it sunk (stupid ball). Well it seemed like not a big problem as Barron stuck his whole head in the water past his eyes right up to his neck and grabbed it. After a couple seconds of just standing there staring Matt and I praised him like we had never praised before! We also laughed for a couple minutes because as he was doing it he was blowing major bubbles in the water from what I assume was his nose. I am amazed everyday by this dog. His problem solving skills and fearlessness are astounding. On another note on the same walk that this happened our neighbor came out with her kids and her napoleon complexed Shi-tzu(SP?) and Barron was a complete gentleman. he didn't over power the kids when trying to be pet and let them throw his ball and when the shi-tzu ran at him and barked and kind of barked in his face he just lifted his head up and backed up. He avoided the situation and ignored the dog which is really good as he has not been around little dogs too much. Overall it was one great day.