Hello everyone! DO I, OR DON'T I ???

[Huntmaster]

This Board is just what I was looking for!

I found a great pond to train my lab in, it has nice deadfall, muskrat houses, bullrush and all obstacles needed to make some realistic retrieves. BUT it also has several ducks with their young, mostly Mallards and Woodies. I hate firing off my 209 starter and using my duck call, plus having my lab swimming around them, its not fair to the birds. I train around 7:30 at night when the sun is less brutal, but this is also the time the birds start coming in to roost. I hate to give up this spot, but I think I'm going to, I cant stand disturbing wildlife with young. What would you do! Help please!!

On the other hand, if the birds stay, I will have them gun trained and could use this pond for openning day!!! LOL,,, :1:

[franklauzon]

firstly, welcome to the site... Personally since you are running water, I wouldn't worry about the temperature... Run when you'll cause the least amount of disturbance... we've trained and had ducks 100 yards down the pond and they never took off...

[luvmylabs]

Welcome to the board. Don't know about ducks, but we have had geese swim within 40 yds. of our dogs when they were training. Never bothered the ducks. The dogs got a little excited though:rolleyes: Good way to teach them to ignore a distraction. What a distraction it was too!!!:bigrin


Anne

[Huntmaster]

Thanks for the advice and the nice welcome! The pond Im talking about is on two different landowners. I did my work on tracking them down to ask for permission to train there and they both had no problems with it. Also gave them my name, address, phone#, colour of truck with plate #. This seems to really help when asking permission. Also told them I had no problem with an audience if they wanted to watch. Im going to fallow your advice and keep training there. Tonight I will be using a punt to get my son deeper in with the birds to launch. This will give me a better feel about my being there!

Thanks Again!! :spoton:

[Sharon]

I read on a post that a dog could still get hypothermia even if it's working in water? Is that true?

[Kevin Hannah]

I read on a post that a dog could still get hypothermia even if it's working in water? Is that true?

I assume you are talking about over heating. They can still over heat doing water work. Some small ponds get very warm later in the summer and are like swimming around in a bath tub.

Kevin

[franklauzon]

Kevin is correct, they can still overheat if the water is warm enough, same as how a wet dog can overheat in a dog box, as the water that is trapped between the skin and hair just gets warm and the dog has no way to cool off. That's why it's important to dry off the dog, or have goot moving air.

[just chessies]

Welcome to the forum, I train on two different farms on their ponds the ducks they come and go with their young ones. The geese thats a different story they will swim back and forth with their young one,s as the dogs swim by to do a retrieve they have even drop out of the sky circled the dog with in 15/20 ft. just watching the dog go by. The first time it happened my dog kept giving them the second look but after a while figured it out thats not what she was sent for and it was all in a days work :dog: :dog: :dog:

[Anna Scott]

Marv is right the ducks are a little more shy than the geese but I have found that they really don't move too far away when we are training.