CAN POODLES REALLY HUNT?

Author: Gary Scovel
http://www.lakelandhuntingpoodles.com/

The vast majority of serious hunters do not believe a Standard Poodle can compare to the best-known retriever breeds. That is true only when it comes to very cold water; however, most hunters, when given the opportunity to see a well-trained Poodle quartering out front of the gun, trailing hot bird scent to a flush, accurately marking the bird down following a successful shot, and retrieving it to hand, will change their opinion. Their skepticism disappears completely when other retriever breeds on the same hunt continue to come up empty while the Poodle flushes and retrieves bird after bird. It gets even better when the Poodle finds and retrieves a crippled rooster pheasant that has buried itself in deep cover after the most popular retriever in the world (guess what breed that would be) cannot find it.

How does this scribe and life-long hunter know anything about hunting over Poodles? It is because I am the proud owner of two male Standard Poodles, with a third young bitch still learning, and have repeatedly seen them first-hand do exactly as described above.

The two dogs are Beau and Scout, the bitch is Callie. I started training all three on their basic obedience commands as soon as they arrived at our home (seven to eight weeks of age) with come, sit/stay, kennel, heel, etc. It is not a lot of fun hunting over any breed of dog that refuses to listen and is continuously out of control. When the Poodles were between six to eight months and retrieving fools, I introduced them to force-fetch and the electronic training collar. (The e-collar should never be used to teach but only to reinforce well-known previously taught commands, and only at a stimulation level the dog has been properly conditioned to.)

I do condition the fetch using the ear pinch. Many experts believe that it is important to use a forced retrieve method in order to advance to the top levels of Hunt Testing like Beau and Scout have done. I primarily followed the Mike Lardy training program. www.totalretrievers.com.  Many obedience trainers also use the ear pinch to force their dogs to fetch for advanced obedience trials.

Beau was my first serious attempt at training a Poodle to hunt and it was not what I thought it would be like: it was actually a lot easier than I expected. He was a very driven retriever right from the start, as are most Poodles, but had no idea it was not simply for his own entertainment. It took Beau awhile to learn that it was wrong to tenderize the birds on his own with his teeth. Hunting with any dog is a team sport.

After Beau was exposed to live wing-clipped pigeons on land and water when he was five months old, he decided it was his passion in life to run or swim them down and bring them straight back to me so he could do it again. Shortly after pigeons, he graduated to retrieving ducks and pheasants.

He will be seven years old in October and has lived a life he loves – hunting and retrieving in North and South Dakota during our three trips there each year. He was only thirteen months old on his first South Dakota hunt; however, he had already earned his United Kennel Club Started Hunting Retriever title and his American Kennel Club Junior Hunting title prior to his first birthday. To earn the Junior and Started titles, he had to pass four tests in each venue. Junior and Started tests consist of two single land and two single water retrieves. In Junior, he had to deliver the duck to hand, but only within each reach, for Started.

Before Beau had ever seen a pheasant, I took him to a private shooting preserve in Wisconsin for a warm-up. The manager was shocked when I showed up with a Poodle. He had earlier released the six birds I paid for and was wondering aloud if I was not wasting my money hunting with a Poodle. I asked him if I killed more than six would I have to pay extra. He laughingly explained the field we would be in was hunted hard the day before by three very experienced dogs and gunners. He was sure they had killed all the released birds.

He showed us our field and left Beau and me alone to do our thing. When I returned to his house in less than two hours for a receipt to authorize legal possession of the seven birds I had shot, all retrieved beautifully by Beau, he had to eat crow.

A month later, my pal Dan and I left for Beau’s first truly wild pheasant hunt in South Dakota: birds there are a lot smarter than those he had flushed at the preserve. During our five-day hunt, we shot 30 roosters over him and lost only two we knocked down that he did not see fall. Several times while hunting far away from the Poodles, Dan would walk up on an occasional rooster, drop it, and have no luck locating it. I would take Beau over to his rescue and find it for him. Dan came home convinced a Poodle could really hunt.

The following summer, Beau earned his UKC Seasoned title and his AKC Senior Hunter title, the next levels above Started and Junior. These are more difficult tests involving double marks on land and water (with a land and water blind to boot), steady to shot, honoring, and more. A blind is a hidden bird the dog has not seen shot. It requires the dog to take a line as sent, stop on a whistle blast, and understand and follow directions from the handler’s arm signals to locate the bird. Honoring is when one dog quietly allows another dog to complete his task and waits until he is sent to retrieve his own bird.

That next fall, Beau and I went to North Dakota alone, only this time to hunt ducks. We slept in the back of my pickup truck. I found potholes loaded with ducks just about everywhere I looked. On one, I put out a small spread of decoys, set up a makeshift blind on a promising point, ate, fed Beau, and prepared to get up very early in the morning for Beau’s first real duck hunt.

Then, as I relaxed to watch and enjoy a beautiful fall sunset, I noticed a large flock of mallards settling down below the horizon well off in the distance. They had to be using water far from any road, and I decided to go look before it got too dark. When I was close with Beau at heel, I could see and hear hundreds of mallards on a small pothole calling to more that were still circling trying to find an open spot to land. Too bad my license was not good until morning.

I stuck with my original spot at daylight, knowing that the “hidden duck factory” would be a goldmine no matter when I could find time to hunt it. Beau was wound tighter than a steel spring. He had an exciting time watching the sky for ducks as the sun burned off a light morning fog and ducks started coming to the decoys. Within an hour, he had made six long water retrieves, completing our mixed bag of widgeon and a couple of shovellers.

We spent the rest of the morning cleaning birds and scouting new country. Beau even chased up a few pheasants in the afternoon, but my license did not cover them. I did not hunt the next morning at all but waited until mid-afternoon before walking to the mallard “goldmine” carrying a gunnysack of decoys along with my trusty 12-gauge shotgun.

Much to my surprise, the mallards were already there. I had no choice but to flush them off, put out my decoys, and wait for their return. I knew they would be back. There was no cover anywhere close to the water to hide Beau and me so I made him lie down, covered him with a gunnysack, smoothed out a place next to him for me on the dry mud bank, and flattened out on my back.

Ten minutes later the air was full of mallards. One small group broke off immediately from the flock. They didn’t even circle, but dropped in fast; however, it was on the far side just out of gun range. Beau could not stand that. He jumped up expecting me to shoot, and the ducks were gone. We had a serious discussion about him not doing that again. The rest of the flock circled three or four times driving us both nuts. Beau kept his head uncovered watching, but the ducks did not seem to notice him or me. I was able to keep him lying down with a constant stream of hissed, “Stay, Drop” commands. He obeyed, which was darn good for his limited experience plus seeing all those ducks finally splashing down in the water twenty yards away. I sat up, picked out two green heads, and dropped both on the rise. Beau did not wait to hear his name or the signal to fetch. He was gone before I could say anything. I started making plans to train with more emphasis on keeping him steady until released.

There was only about a foot of water and two feet of thick, gooey, black mud, and Beau had to work hard to make his first real hunting double retrieve. As more mallards landed within range, I would wait letting Beau settle down and staying steady before I would take the mallards as they jumped out of the water.

One drake I had wing-tipped led Beau all the way across the water onto land before he was able to catch it. He carried it back around by land, no longer a silver Poodle, but a black one, covered in stinking mud. It did not bother either of us.

With half-an-hour of shooting time left, Beau had retrieved our limit of five big drake mallards. I could have waited, hoping for a single pintail to fill our six-limit, but this was strictly a mallard hole. Satisfied, I unloaded the 12-gauge. We stayed until the sun was down as more mallards continued to pile in. For Beau and me, it was an unbelievable sight to watch.

The next morning in a new spot, I took a long passing shot at a pintail drake. Hit, it glided down out of sight over a rise. I did not want to lose it. Beau only searched as far as the top of the hill, way too short a distance. That was where he had seen it disappear. Much to my dismay I discovered, as I walked over the rise, a large cattail slough another one-hundred yards out. That pintail had to be in the middle of it somewhere. I walked Beau up to the edge and sent him in. Luckily, the wind was hard in his face. He took off out of sight and was gone for a good five minutes. When I heard him bark once, I knew he was chasing that duck and was going to come back with a pintail . . . and he did. That left no question in my mind that I would never hunt over a different breed. And, it is why, for a previous die-hard Labrador Retriever guy, I had to have two more Poodles.

Scout was next, and then came Callie. Scout is close to attaining his UKC Hunting Retriever Champion title. He needs one more pass, and is every bit as good in the field as Beau, if not a bit better.

Oh, I forgot to mention that our Poodles all live in the house and often sleep on the bed. My wife wouldn’t have it any other way.