West Virginia Wildlife from Eyewitness News

Bird Dog

Hunters are already hitting the woods but other's are waiting for bird season to open. Some tips on training a bird dog.

October 19, 2005
Reporter: Patrick McMurtry
Videographer: Brad Rice

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One of the most exciting things is hunting is flushing a bird and having your dog go on point.

But it's hard to go bird hunting without a birddog. Some can cost thousands dollars, but here's the good news, you can get a young dog and train it yourself.

Frank Jezioro/DNR Director says:
"When you're training a young dog and you flush a bird and he's really interested in that bird, then you shoot your blank pistol behind you, but you don't want to just walk up to a dog and shoot your gun to see how he's gonna react because probably more dogs have been made gunshy like that than probably any other way and when you get a dog that's gunshy, then you have a problem on your hads that may be incurable."

DNR Director Frank Jezioro is a bird dog expert. He's been training them for years. Director Jezioro gave a demonstration on training bird dogs at the just completed National Hunting and Fishing Days.
Frank Jezioro/DNR Director says:
"Give the dog, especially the young dog, give him the favor of the wind. You want to see where the wind's blowing and you want to bring him into the bird from the wind side so he can get it. You don't want to start him back here, right into the bird. You want to bring him across that scent. When he hits that scent, all of a sudden, bang, he'll hit that point."

But there's one thing you absolutely have to have when training your dog.

Frank Jezioro/DNR Director says:
"You can train a birddog, you've got to have birds. We use pigeons, we'll use quail but you can train a birddog with one bird and we'll demonstrate that. That little bird in the trap has a little string attached to it so you can use that bird over and over and over."

And when you're training's over, you're ready to hit the fields for some of the most exciting hunting around.