Royal Flush

[Spinach]

Please welcome Royal Flush to to the Pro Staff team. Chris and John will be teaming up to handle the Hunting Dogs forum for us, John has a ton of knowledge in this area.

Chris.... Could you please tell the rest of the team a little about you and John and Royal Flush. I remember talking with John last spring and I was blown away by some of his accomplishments.

Thanks and welcome to the MNO team. If you have any questions, just ask anyone here.

www.royalflushshootingpreserve.com

[Outdoors Junkie]

Welcome to the MNO team!  It is great that you can join us here.   happy2.gif

[Realtree]

Welcome to the MNO team Chris & John....I am looking forward to seeing you guys around the site and learning from your experience and accomplishments!

Welcome aboard!   

     happy2.gif    fudd.gif

[Grute Man]

Fantastic news!! Its great to have such pros as Royal Flush here to help us.  I know I need all the help I can get.

Grute

[Randy Kaar]

welcome to MNO royal flush!!
i havent did much shooting for a long while...
will have to stop up and see your place!

randy aka bh

[GirlGuide]

 party3.gif party3.gif party3.gif party3.gif

WELCOME TO THE ROYAL FLUSH TEAM!!  WE SURE HOPE YOU ENJOY IT HERE AT MNO!!
THANKS FOR COMING ABOARD!!  GG

[Royal Flush]

Hello and thanks for all the warm welcomes! John and I are excited to be a part of MNO. The last few years have been been full of new and exciting adventures. We started Royalty British Kennels about 5 years ago, breeding and training British Labradors. Word spread quickly and we soon outgrew our home-based business. We acquired some land near Hinckley, found some great investors, and created Royal Flush Shooting Preserve. We opened last September for our first hunting season, and we're booking hunts like crazy this year. We're also planning some special events and starting a new hunting league, so please feel free to come up and visit.
John has been training dogs for years. Our first dog, Midnight, is a 15-year-old American Lab. She has been the catalyst for everything that we've created. Most of the dogs that John trains are customers' dogs, but he also trains a limited number of other dogs as well. He's got a great rapport with dogs and a ton of first-hand knowledge on everything from working with puppies to canine first aid to breed temperaments, etc. And because our livelihood is based on dogs and hunting and we're constantly surrounded by hunters with dogs, we pick up a lot of tips and information from other seasoned dog owners as well.
We look forward to our future at MNO and will do our best to be a valuable part of this community. If you have any tips or thoughts to help us do a better job, please feel free to contact us.

[Grute Man]

WOW Im not sure Im understanding this completely.     HEY WAIT!!  I GOT AN IDEA!!     Maybe we could all come up for kinda like a taste test.   fudd.gif  Just to be for sure you know.  Kinda like a scientific research kinda thing.    

OK seriously, I would like to do some work with a dog but she and I would both be beginners and Im not sure she will even be ok with the noise of the guns.  Do you have dog training and such?

Grute  ::

[Royal Flush]

We do have dog training, mostly for our customers as they are a built-in client base. What kind of dog do you have? How old?

[Mayfly]

Weclome to the site!! Looks like a great place!

[Grute Man]

We do have dog training, mostly for our customers as they are a built-in client base. What kind of dog do you have? How old?

She's a 3 year old Chocolate lab.  I have only gotten her out pheasant hunting once  ::hittingself:: and since then she's learned some bad habbits from another dog we have.  Fire crackers and such gets her a little nerveous.  THe one time we got her out, we didn't flush any roosters so at the end of the day, we just fired off a few shots and gave her and my buddies dog (a veteran hunter) some scooby snacks after each shot.  That was my 2nd time pheasant hunting so Im a rookie at this too.

[majcom]

I just wanted to thank John and June at the Royal Flush.  I took Summit(almost 2) and My two boys 10 and 11 up to the Flush for a great hunt last monday.  We beat the cold and had a great hunt.  Summit got up 3 of the 5 birds we put out on the big land.  It was a great venue  to work with the dog and the boys.  We had our own field and all had a great day.  My Youngest never even pulled the trigger but was very happy with his "muzzel control" and showed that he clearly understood his lanes of safe fire.  I only wish at least one of the birds would have flushed in his zones.  His brother did get shots at 2 of the birds and got one of them.  The lunch and skeet range rounded out a great day.  Thanks again for the opportunity to hunt our new dog and 2 new hunters in a family dog friendly environment.  We can't wait to get back.
 

Forum maintenance

[Cody Gruchow]

Royal Flush i have a question about my lab

i am a seasonal hunting guide at marsh lake hunting club in victoria...i recently got this black lab from them..he is 4 years old and already trained for bird hunting, he absolutly loves to hunt...but recently he hasnt been listening very well around the yard.taking a long time to listen to commands only half doing the commands and such or ignoring the commands all together. i used him as one of my dogs when i was guiding so we have a bond and i know he listens alot better than what he has been doing lately. i dont want to physically punish him because i dont want him to be afraid of me or get nervous around me. i know he was force trained as a pup and if he didnt do what he was told he got hit. this was before marsh lake got him. but i dont know what to do. do you have any suggestions? any help would be very much appreciated.

[Grute Man]

Im a rooky at dog training but here's what I did.  When they disobey, I give em a squirt of lemon juice in the yapper.  They learn what that little plastic lemon is REAL FAST!!  Then if they do obey, I give them a small treat.  I got this stuff from TR for Dogs that comes in a tube like a sausage/ground beef tube -- stuff smells like beef jerky.  I cut little cubes up and keep em in my pocket then give them one/two if they obey.  If not.  I walk over to them and - SQUIRT! Then we start over.

That's about all I got for dog training.  Good Luck.

Grute

[Cody Gruchow]

is the lemon juice bad for them? and how much just one small squirt?

[Grute Man]

Its not bad - its just the little plastic lemons you get in the produce isle.  I just give em a teeeeny squirt.  All they need is a drop on the toung and     They hate it.  At first, my lab acted like she liked it but not any more.  She'll run UNDER my bed if she sees it now.   

[Cody Gruchow]

lol alright i will give that i try..thanks for the tip.

[Cody Gruchow]

well my lab is starting to do better...that lemon trick works like a charm...he dont have a tough decision to make...do it right and get a treat and praising do it wrong get a drop of lemon juice..hmmm after about 5 minutes of training he got the hint and now i can make him heal down, which he was never taught to do in the first place. he still wont hold the bumper in his mouth for very long, but he is getting better at it. i can make him stay and i can walk 50 yards away then tell him to heal and he comes running and does it...still having troubles with him healing correctly, when i say heal he runs up and sits down infront of me. i dont know if i should just leaving it like that or correct him. i mean he heals just not to the right spot.

[JackpineRob]

Heeling in the wrong spot isn't heeling.

The whole concept of heel is to have the pooch alongside, looking forward towards where the action is.  Heel is the position you need rock solid in order to be able to direct your dog to blinds.  Heel is where a retriever comes back to - it is the Home Base.

If I were you, I'd go back to Ground Zero on the basics of obedience now during the cold months.  You can play around with this stuff in the house/yard, and build a truly solid foundation for the upcoming season.

Lose the treats.  A hunting dog that works for treats isn't going to do it for you in the long haul.  Its one of those things that you will regret if you keep it up.

I've seen lots of punishments - but am not at all sold on things like spray bottles and lemon juice.  A dog that respects you - through time and effort and mutual respect - will need only a sharp word to make a correction.  Not to say a check cord, a heeling stick or a zap collar can't be useful - but the bottom line is that the correction you use to teach has to be something you can instantly deploy in the field - even if the pooch is many yards out there.

[Cody Gruchow]

what i do is i start out with treats so he learns then you slowly start to do it without treats and only give him praise's...and i understand on the whole heel thing i am correcting him. and he knows better he is just trying to be lazy

[JackpineRob]

Good luck to you and the pooch!  Watching a good dog do his thing is right up there with calling in a turkey or a fox or a coyote - or figuring out a mayfly bite and pulling in walleyes hand over fist - or catching the trout in the midst of a major hatch - or......

Its all good.

My "treat" in training was allowing the dog to get the bumper.  We have a pretty firm foundation in the basics of obedience prior to formal retrieving training, and use the bumper as the treat.  Pup is allowed to hold it briefly.  If a training session goes well, pup is allowed to carry the bumper at heel for awhile.  If a training session goes particularly well, the pup is allowed to carry the bumper back all the way into the house and hold it while I fill up the food dish.  A pup that learns to hold the bumper while his food dish is clattering (and is excited to be allowed to have the bumper that long) is a dog that simply isn't going to drop a bird in the heat of battle.

Mine is not original thought.  I have relied on the works of Free and Wolters and Duffy and others, whose books I have read and slowly incorporated into what I do with my pooches.  The one constant in all of the field training books is to avoid the use of food treats for training.  I've seen two dogs trained with food - and neither of them was worth his Alpo in the field.  When the ducks are bailing into the decoys or the pheasants are racing through the cattails, a guy doesn't want to have to worry about having enough kibble in his pocket.

If I were you, I'd pick up a good training book, and start over at the puppy stage right now, while you've got plenty of time.  A pooch that goes through the whole process with YOU - his partner and buddy - is going to be the dog that hangs in there through thick and thin.

Just offering my feeble thoughts, such as they are.  In the end, we all have to paddle our own canoe.

[Cody Gruchow]

ok thanks for the info