How to Train a Bird Dog to Hunt Dead

The ability to “hunt dead” adds extra value to your retriever as an upland hunter. When a bird is down and dead, or—as sometimes happens—down but wounded, your dog is going to have to find that bird using its nose. There are plenty of drills you can do to help it learn how to use its sense of smell more efficiently.

So much of what we do with our retrievers is visual. You throw a bumper (or someone throws it for you), your retriever sees it, and goes after it. However, success in going after an object or bird that your dog didn’t see fall begins with your ability to identify the area where it makes sense to start the search. Take your dog to that area...

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