May/June 2009

Gun Dog Forum
Mistake: Enthusiastic Quester to Boot Polisher
by Larry Brown

ow’d that promising new pup work out for you last season? Was he the world-beater he looked to be when you were working with him this time last year? Or was he a disappointment? If the latter, now is the time to analyze what went wrong and, hopefully, fix it before next hunting season.

So you exposed him to wild birds and he showed every bit as much excitement and interest as you could hope. You switched to training birds – pigeons and quail – and you got him pointing staunchly. You figured a season on wild birds, then you’d think about steady to wing and shot and force-fetch.

But somewhere along the line – and you can’t figure out where – the wheels came off. Instead of the enthusiasm and drive he showed in training, he became a boot-polisher. He spent as much time behind you as he did out front. And if anything, instead of hunting to objectives, he seemed to be avoiding the birdy spots.

In frustration, you put him up, left him in the kennel for a few days, and hunted over the old veteran. You thought maybe he’d snap out of it the next time you gave him a chance. But he didn’t – nor the time after that. And now you’re wondering where you should go from here, or whether you ought to give up on your pup.

One possibility – although not very likely if you aren’t seeing any symptoms other than the dog’s behavior when you’re in the field – is some sort of health issue. A visit to the vet may be in order to rule it out.

But assuming it’s not health-related, and assuming your initial evaluation of the dog as having a lot of promise was accurate, what’s going on? Given the behavior described above, I see three possibilities:

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