Wirehaired Pointing Griffon

[arock]

That's pretty funny! My wife hates my bearded dogs. They make awful messes when they drink.

Ha, you get used to wondering what you've stepped in and just assume that it is beard slime from the monster drinking.

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

It just comes with time and birds. It's a prey drive thing. I let my pups chase them all, it's part of the learning process. Remember the first year is for them, every year after that is for you. It's all about time in the field and all those little and big birds just reinforce he can't catch them. Curtailing drive at a young age can have catastrophic effects once you start the training process later.

Thank you very much for this. On the farm when I let him out to run with his collar on I let him go crazy, but when we're actually on a training run I try very hard to consistently use "no bird!" command on the little birds. Just trying to make sure i'm not letting bad habits get established and at the same time not staunching his drive (not that I think that's even possible, wow!).

 

[Govinator3]

I find this really funny. My griff has recently started dipping her beard in her water bowl after finishing her dinner and then returning to the food bowl and liking up the kibble dust/beard water mixture. Her food bowl is super shiny now.

I don't think she has separation anxiety. We routinely leave her alone and unkenneled and never come home to anything destroyed. We stopped crating her when we were away at about 1yo. However, as another guy said, when she can see me out the window doing something in the yard or garage, my wife says its like someone is murdering the dog.

IMO griffs are house dogs, they really need to be around people. I don't think they would do well in a outdoor kennel setup.

 

[Broomd]

Why did you stop breeding? Any breeders you recommend?

Simple answer is that our dogs just got older.
The last litter from our dam Maggie was one single pup. Her first two were a combined twenty.
I suspect the lone pup thing was because she had been kicked by an angus cow and she wasn't right after that. Living in this country has its perils.
After both our breeding parents died in March '17 we stepped back for a breather.
Everyone here knows that dogs = dedication and work, griffs especially, given that they are so full of life and social. We aren't concrete kennel people, our dogs live with us.
As Goviator above just alluded: Griffs have no place in a concrete kennel full time--to each his own.

As for a breeder, personally I'd recommend the guy I just bought from. His pups look to have all the right stuff and he's a hunter, his dogs aren't bookmarks. He's out of Idaho Falls, I'll PM his details to you if you'd like.

 

[WRO]

Thank you very much for this. On the farm when I let him out to run with his collar on I let him go crazy, but when we're actually on a training run I try very hard to consistently use "no bird!" command on the little birds. Just trying to make sure i'm not letting bad habits get established and at the same time not staunching his drive (not that I think that's even possible, wow!).

My only advice is let him learn on his own. A pointing dog is not a retriever. Training a retriever is all about control and basically dictating every move they do in the field. Pointing dogs come out of the with box knowing how to hunt it's more of a guiding thing to hone their skills. My 15 month old and my 14 year old, chased every tweetie bird, hawk, crow for a long time. It all clicked bird hunting and they could care less about them now. Once they figure out they can't catch birds, they'll start pointing on their own and then you can start the whoa breaking process. I wouldn't recommend breaking a dog until they're mature enough, usually 16 months old. Any negative connotation with birds can lead to blinking birds and other really hard habits to break.

I take a pretty soft hand with my dogs the first year. I only potty train them, here on a reward basis until their 8 or 9 months old (then I collar condition them), kennel train them, load up, and that's about it. I don't care if a dog sits (in fact it can create problems when you start applying pressure during whoa training as it becomes a default when the pressure steps up) I don't care if they heel, and if they're out of the house we're in the field or training most of the time. It's easy to reign them in, hard to push them out.

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

My only advice is let him learn on his own. A pointing dog is not a retriever. Training a retriever is all about control and basically dictating every move they do in the field. Pointing dogs come out of the with box knowing how to hunt it's more of a guiding thing to hone their skills. My 15 month old and my 14 year old, chased every tweetie bird, hawk, crow for a long time. It all clicked bird hunting and they could care less about them now. Once they figure out they can't catch birds, they'll start pointing on their own and then you can start the whoa breaking process. I wouldn't recommend breaking a dog until they're mature enough, usually 16 months old. Any negative connotation with birds can lead to blinking birds and other really hard habits to break.

I take a pretty soft hand with my dogs the first year. I only potty train them, here on a reward basis until their 8 or 9 months old (then I collar condition them), kennel train them, load up, and that's about it. I don't care if a dog sits (in fact it can create problems when you start applying pressure during whoa training as it becomes a default when the pressure steps up) I don't care if they heel, and if they're out of the house we're in the field or training most of the time. It's easy to reign them in, hard to push them out.

Again, thank you very much for the advice. My retired GR was an amazing bird dog and he reacted completely opposite to Oscar. I agree 100% that training a retriever vs. a WPG is night and day.

I don't care about "style points" either. I did teach Oscar to sit, but all the other parlor tricks are for somebody else's dog. I actually took him on a hunt at a local game preserve at 7 months and he did a great job in a situation I now know was probably unfair to put him. Out of 6 released birds he point/flushed 5 and attempted a "retrieve" on 5. For some reason (probably just bad shooting) 5 out of 6 were very lively when they hit the grass and after he located them he had to wrestle and pin them to the ground. He didn't actually retrieve any, but he didn't let them go either. We hadn't done a lot of retrieving work up to that point, so I wasn't disappointed and the hunt was mostly about getting him exposed to real birds.

My farm is surrounded by 80 acres of native grass and its full of pheasants, so he gets a nose full every time we have a north breeze. He certainly knows what a pheasant is at this point, and now that its warming up we are going to get back to a regular training schedule'

 

[Kleos]

Simple answer is that our dogs just got older.
The last litter from our dam Maggie was one single pup. Her first two were a combined twenty.
I suspect the lone pup thing was because she had been kicked by an angus cow and she wasn't right after that. Living in this country has its perils.
After both our breeding parents died in March '17 we stepped back for a breather.
Everyone here knows that dogs = dedication and work, griffs especially, given that they are so full of life and social. We aren't concrete kennel people, our dogs live with us.
As Goviator above just alluded: Griffs have no place in a concrete kennel full time--to each his own.

As for a breeder, personally I'd recommend the guy I just bought from. His pups look to have all the right stuff and he's a hunter, his dogs aren't bookmarks. He's out of Idaho Falls, I'll PM his details to you if you'd like.

I sent you a PM

 

[zion zig zag]

Currently, with the puppy only being 12 weeks old, we’re just working on recall and ”right here.” That’s easy to do with praise and treats. But what‘s the method for teaching them to avoid bad behavior? For example, how to keep him out of the cat food by the barn if they only respond to positive reinforcement and you can’t “scold” them? I’ve been telling him ”leave it” and ”good leave it” when I pull him away, but he still goes for that cat food!

Him with his Idaho Shag big brother a couple of weeks ago:

 

[WRO]

Put the cat food where he can't get at it and remove the temptation..

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

 

[zion zig zag]

Put the cat food where he can't get at it and remove the temptation..

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

Yep, that’s what we did. Just trying for an example of how to correct negative behavior.

 

[Kleos]

Yep, that’s what we did. Just trying for an example of how to correct negative behavior.

A good way to correct a behavior your dont like is either to prevent it completely, or catch it in the act and replace it with a desired behavior.

For instance if you see your dog going for cat food give it a no command (I like eh eh) and place down his food.

 

[Pony Soldier]

I find that the same thing works for griffs, kids and horses - consistancy. Nasty temper tantrums are counter productive. Rewarding success and voicing your disproval on the undesirable parts. I have a very friendly cat that loves to rub up against my pup. I got him up to pointing the cat but not chasing. Their long term breeding is fur and feathers. I had one female that held the best points on field mice nests. I had another that pointed porcupines. I learned to not urge him to bump them. It's a partnership and they want to please you. Use that in your training.

 

[Broomd]

Our little guy will be with us two weeks tomorrow. He's 11.5 weeks.
He finished his dinner tonight, puppy kibble with broiled sockeye mixed in.
I waited for him to finish, he started to sniff around and figured I'd grab the leash or prompt him to the doggy door exit.
To my surprise he tore off into the doggy door tunnel and out of the house, raced up the hill and did his thing.
He ran back in proud as a peacock to get his reward. lol...

I'm hoping that we have this licked in two more weeks, looking promising.
Praise, reward, encouragement, scratches, snuggles--patience--all incredibly important at this age.