Hunting season has arrived and you are planning to go hunting with your friend – a hunting dog. It will be a great feeling if you go with this friend on such hunting trips.

In general, with specialized training, your dog will become a real hunter. In addition, it can also become your great friend for life. But do this, do you know how to train a hunting dog?

Let’s refer to all the interesting info below!

How To Train A Hunting Dog

  • Choose the right dog breed
  • Play with them
  • Teach them to obey
  • Get your dog used to the smell of the bait
  • Training comes with positive rewards
  • Expose your dog to the real environment
  • Update training plan continuously

Choose The Right Dog Breed

In this section, you need to find out for yourself which dog breeds are suitable for hunting. You can ask acquaintances, your hunt partners, or go online to find out information. Determining the breed from the outset will give you a well-rounded training plan.

Of course, you should design a running space for them once you have decided to train a hunting dog. According to instructions, a good space should have enough space for them to run and play and often play with you.

Play With Them

First of all, we need to know that hounds also grew up in a world with different emotions: happy, sad, scared, or excited. In that world, you will be their first friends.

That’s why it’s often important to get close to your travel companion from the very beginning. Not only do you have time to learn their personalities, but you also know which hunting skills they are best suited for.

Teach Them To Obey

Although leaving them free with clichéd commands doesn’t have much of an effect on their personalities and hunting skills, it is important for them to obey us.

You can only control and train them easily when they obey the first commands, especially sit and stay.

To do this, we need to use food as bait and keep the food on their heads for a while. Then you just need to gently press their hind legs with a short command: “Sit down!”.  Keep repeating this movement until your dog gets used to it.

Get Your Dog Used To The Smell Of The Bait

You need to know that in order for your dog to quickly recognize the smell of animals, it is very important to let them get used to the smell when they are young.

In this training, you should let them smell the bait and the real meat to get them used to it. Then, you try to throw the bait away and have your dog run to find them within a certain distance. This gap depends on your training schedule, which can widen over time.

Of course, you need to pay attention to how your dog reacts to these meat and bait smells. If they attack and behave aggressively, you should gently separate them and repeat the training another time.

You keep playing this pattern-finding game with them until the dog is really used to it!

Training Comes With Positive Rewards

After throwing away the bait, you need to watch and encourage your hound to follow and get it back to you. You need to constantly cheer it up and prepare a small reward to boost morale for your little friend.

Such moral support and encouragement bring a lot of little benefits. Your relationship with your friend will be strengthened day by day, and your dog’s hunting skills will grow more and more.

Expose Your Dog To The Real Environment

Getting used to the real environment is something you need to do as quickly as possible. Of course, in the early days when you bring them home, they are more or less familiar with the world around them. But not enough.

What we do continuously then is to create conditions for dogs to contact the real world, especially the ideal hunting environment such as forest, swamp, pond, lake, ect.

Update Training Plan Continuously

It may seem like everything you have trained your hound has done, but the reality of hunting is very different from what you and your dog practiced before.

Instead of just fantasizing about hunting trips, you should have them go hunting with you to gauge their hunting skills and your training progress. Only then will you know what level your dog has reached?

If you go hunting, you should prepare reasonable hunting gear. Hunting gear will support you and your companions in good physical condition. This item can be used as food or drink.

In addition, bring your dog’s protective jacket in the case in the middle of the field or in the woods, the temperature changes cause your dog to lose fitness. This shirt also helps you quickly find them in a large space.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How old is a dog suitable for training?

The answer is that the younger the age, the easier it is to train. It’s never too late to start training a hunting dog. If you already have a plan, go ahead.

2. In addition to hunting, can other dogs be trained to be hunters?

The answer is no. Only hunting dogs can be trained. The remaining dog breeds are not suitable for hunting because of inappropriate body structure, coat, and size.

3. What if the dog is afraid of gunfire?

It’s important to familiarize your dog with gunfire and recognize that gunfire isn’t scary. You should not delay when your dog is afraid of gunfire and runs away. Instead, calmly and patiently train and reward them if they do well.

Summary 

So training a hunting dog is a long process, both arduous and very enjoyable. This process will be an opportunity to improve your dog’s hunting skills, and also strengthen and improve the bond between you and them to become stronger.

Above all, if this companion has good skills or not, just being obedient and obedient will leave you with a lot of satisfaction and joy, right ?

Wishing you and this special companion a perfect and enjoyable hunting trip. Good luck with your training steps.

Thank you for your interest in the article!