# Flushing???



## Swampcollie (Sep 6, 2007)

Goldens were intentionally made for upland work.


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## Shalva (Jul 16, 2008)

yes I realize that... they were a hunting retriever, I know that as well... Don STurz does a really nice presentation on the various retrievers and their purposes ... 

but I will ask again 

has anyone tried flushing?


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## sterregold (Dec 9, 2009)

In short, Shalva, yes. They ARE rather than WERE a hunting retriever, at least the ones I breed.

Lots of us here hunt our Goldens on upland birds, as we do not hunt Brit style with spaniels working with beaters and retrievers waiting to pick up the downed birds--one dog has to find, flush, and retrieve the bird. My Winter is a pheasant machine, and likes himself some grouse as well. Canadian hunt tests actually include an upland portion, with quartering in SH and a quarter to flush in MH. I now only train for upland work after my dogs are handling and running blinds as I find it can make the dogs a bit self-employed in those tasks otherwise. They pick it up very quickly--we just introduce it the way the spaniel people do with a bunch of dizzied pigeons and a couple of helpers on the margins of the field to hey-hey and encourage the dog to swing and quarter. Once they start popping up birds everything seems to click!


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## Swampcollie (Sep 6, 2007)

My dogs are ALL flushing fools out of the womb.

The desire to hunt is not a trained ability. To work as an upland dog the dog needs to possess an inborn desire for birds, the desire to use ones nose, the desire to search and courage to go into new and sometimes intimidating environments in pursuit if their quarry. 

These qualities are not learned behaviors, a dog possesses them or it doesn't. The trained aspects of upland work is really more obedience than anything else, getting the dog to stop, break off pursuit and come when called. Teaching a dog to quarter is an easy process once the obedience skills are in place. Quartering however is not "hunting".


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## sterregold (Dec 9, 2009)

And we certainly see who is a natural and who is not in our tests--the ones who do not have natural ability quarter mechanically--working the field in a set pattern because that is all they were taught to do. The good ones (ie the ones with natural ability!) use the wind and recognize where birds like to hide, and how they move through cover. The upland tests usually have a pretty big range of abilities --from the mechanical dogs looking for direction and not really hunting for themselves, to those who just know how to find birds--and it can be painful to watch some of these dogs after you have hunted over a good one. If I was only hunting upland I would not be waiting to let them play, but I find my guys click in pretty fast after they get that intro. I do this now as I had issues getting Winter to be a team player on blinds because he was so used to working out where to find the birds for me to shoot!


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## Shalva (Jul 16, 2008)

sterregold said:


> And we certainly see who is a natural and who is not in our tests--the ones who do not have natural ability quarter mechanically--working the field in a set pattern because that is all they were taught to do. The good ones (ie the ones with natural ability!) use the wind and recognize where birds like to hide, and how they move through cover. The upland tests usually have a pretty big range of abilities --from the mechanical dogs looking for direction and not really hunting for themselves, to those who just know how to find birds--and it can be painful to watch some of these dogs after you have hunted over a good one. If I was only hunting upland I would not be waiting to let them play, but I find my guys click in pretty fast after they get that intro. I do this now as I had issues getting Winter to be a team player on blinds because he was so used to working out where to find the birds for me to shoot!


Thanks... this is helpful...we have worked our goldens wiht a field trainer and they do well on the retrieve but we havent tried flushing with them... and I think with the bird that is the direction that we would need to work on... the bird probably won't let the dogs pick up game but if we could get the goldens to flush then that would be pretty nice.... then the hawk can go and get... 
My dogs do quarter and they play a good game of find it... now I can just channel that into more purposeful work. They definitely have the drive and the natural ability for the retrieve so I guess i need to make an appt. with the field trainer. 
thanks a bunch appreciate it


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

hoooo boy, tell me about it! Thank doG for e-collars.....we had a major issue with getting him to call off the hunt.



Swampcollie said:


> The trained aspects of upland work is really more obedience than anything else, getting the dog to stop, break off pursuit and come when called. QUOTE]


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## GoldenSail (Dec 30, 2008)

Shalva said:


> I am going to be an apprentice falconer and wanted to see if I could run the the falcon over the goldens. I know i can't do it over the big hound... and am not sure about the flat coats but was wondering about the goldens


Wow that's awesome! What bird are you going to start with? My sister is hoping to get into falconry and maybe even add a dog and was wondering which breeds works well with falcons--and ideally something more hypoallergenic (like poodles) because of her husband's allergies. She's had a job at an aviary training birds for years and just left for financial reasons...misses the birds for sure.


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