We went Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and it was all in all a horrible trip for me. The guide's dog couldn't hunt with other dogs, we think he has trained it to fight. Never seen a lab do what it did. The guy said his dog will kill my dog if I brought it to the blind, and the one time they were both out it tried to. It went straight for the throat kill, luckily only got her on the chest, pretty bad puncture wound. Took both my dad and me to pry the dogs mouth off her. And to top things off, he is southern baptist. We had to say a prayer before the hunt, and he preached at us for the first day. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but we are all catholic and don't really mesh well with the preachy types. Think he wrote us off as by Saturday night though when I had to be held back from killing him and his dog, see above. He has a sign on his camp: No Alcohol, guns, or dogs in the camp. 10 Louisiana boys showing up to hunt with a couple of cases of beer each and all former military, it didn't match up well. Plus we all got loaded watching the LSU game and the party continued after and we ignored his stupid rules, the dog attack happened a few hours after the game so that didn't help things. As for the hunting, it was slow Friday and Saturday. Even when weather hit Saturday afternoon things didn't pick up until Sunday morning. Ducks were everywhere and we limited on pintail, 28 ducks total between 7 guys. The only thing wrong with Sunday was for whatever reason the geese stopped working, only got a few sky busting.
To me, the thing for him to have done would've been to let you bring YOUR dog and leave his. You're paying him. Or let you (any client) know ahead of time not to bring a dog.
WOW! That is terrible service for a guided hunt man! I applaud you for not shooting his dog off of yours. I don't know that I could hold back if somebody's dog attacked Chelsea. Sorry you had to go through all that garbage. Glad yall were able to pound some ducks on Sunday, silver lining I suppose. Any pics?
Well I wasn't the only client and that offer was on the table at one point. However it was up to me to retrieve all the ducks. She is 6 months old on her first hunt, no way she is going to retrieve that well. I didn't mind going out and getting all the ducks, but I got some negativity about that from a few of the guys. They are not dog guys, so don't think they really understood what was going on and they only cared about an efficient hunt as opposed to a dogs first hunt. I could see their point of view, didn't agree with it, but see it. They paid too. Plus I get final word there when I make them get out the blind to pick up their ducks next year a few times. The whole thing would have been moot, but my Dad's champion died last year. My biggest disappointment was I wanted her to watch another dog work. Beyond that I did what I wanted to do, and get her out on her first hunt.
I can understand now. I wouldn't take a dog out on their first hunt with too many guns, people, distractions. I know not everyone is in the same position but I would go by myself. This allows you more room to be patient and let the focus be on the dog. Course when I had dogs the focus of the hunt did become loving to see them work anyway. Years ago I had a friend pay a lot of money for a well trained lab. When he went to see the dog he asked me to go with him to get my opinion. The dog worked great with dummies. Whistle and hand signals. He ended up buying him and said he was going to take him on a dove hunt we were having THAT afternoon. I told him he should take the dog home, feed it and play with it for a few days then work it some. After a period of at least SOME bonding then take him on a hunt. He didn't listen. Unloaded him and walked to a spot. First shots fired the dog broke and went visiting everyone in the field. We were all strangers, his former "master" 4 hours before was 40 miles away so what can you expect? :hihi:
Anyone who likes to work with labs should read the book Water Dog by Richard Wolters. I highly recommend the book and the techniques. The book is $17.00 new. Here's a link with some used ones for $6.00. It teaches the correct use of pressure and not using it to punish, rather, enforce desired behaviors. [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Water-Dog-Revolutionary-Training-Method/dp/0525247343"]Amazon.com: Water Dog: Revolutionary Rapid Training Method (9780525247340): [/ame]
They did have to hold me back.... I broke the door knob of his front door somewhere in there, not sure how. Keep in mind the attack happened as we were getting back from the LSU game. I believe I was already on beer 10 by then, I didn't get much sleep that night as we were in the blind by 5. Water dog is a good one, but there are a bunch of newer ones out there that I also read. Yeah I have to get the pictures loaded online and I will list soon, probably at Christmas. Wasn't worried about the guns, we have been taking her to the range when we shoot. And the way it ended up it was only three of us on her first hunt, and we didn't shoot much.
Oh and I train the dog myself, I am not doing force fetching myself though. We have a family friend that will do that for us, he is a professional trainer, Wild Wing, out in Robert area. Gumbo is going to uncle Ron's after Christmas for boot camp.
GREAT BOOK! the methods even work for Chessies.... :hihi: I used that book and "10 min retriever" by John and Amy Dahl to get pointers on how to go about training Chelsea. VERY helpful. She is my first hunting dog, and I was very skeptical about sending her off to a "professional trainer". I think too often a lot of those trainers gear the dogs more towards field trials instead of hunting. Great field trial dogs don't necessarily equate to great hunting dogs, and vice versa.
Years ago I had a GREAT chocolate. I could sit in my blind and watch him to know if there were any ducks around. He'd twitch his head and pick up any in the vacinity. One morning a friend was hunting with me and we knocked down three teal in a bunch. I sent him out and he came back with TWO in his mouth. One the way back from the first retrieve he saw another one on the pond, put the first one down next to it and picked both. No hard-mouth either. The guy said, "Oh, they'd penalize you for that in a trial." I told him I had no problems with my dog being smart enough to save himself a trip back out. I honestly couldn't believe he'd done it and he never did it again though I wouldn't have stopped him.
