Re: {Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Random question about dog training for upland game

McKee Beshers, hands down. 

For gunfire training, I cannot express enough how important it is to make baby steps in acclimating your dog to gunfire. DO NOT USE THE 12ga BLANK RIGHT AWAY -*YOU WILL RUIN THE DOG.  It should take a few weeks of acclimating to work up to a 12ga blank. Start by banging your least favorite pots and pans over his head every time he is fed. once he's comfortable with that get a play cap gun, the ones with the red circular rings, and fire those over his head while he eats. The idea here is to associate loud, abrupt noises with pleasure. If you skip this step and fire a blank over your dog without working up to this, you will ruin your dog forever. Think outside the box. If you have a jackhammer working in your neighborhood, safely walk him near the sound and feed him treats for stopping at heel, whoa-ing, etc. Again, you want him to get excited every time he hears any sort of loud *bang*. After your dog's ears don't so much as prick up when you bang a pot over his head while eating, then and only then should you move to a 12ga or .22 blank. They are louder than you think and will scare the living shit out of a dog if you don't take the time to acclimate him. 

McKee Beshers is the only public land made available specifically for dog training. There is a small annual fee to use the fields ($20), but the land is well managed by Maryland DNR, the Potomac Chapter of NAVHDA (North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association, which you should definitely consider joining for mentorship opportunities and testing) as well as the Potomac Chapter of the Ruffed Grouse Society.  There are upland fields of milo designated specifically for training and also ponds for duck and water retrieve training. The sorghum fields can get lots of briers late in the season, but it's usually fine going into fall.   It's the only place I found around here to fire blanks and release live pigeons on public lands around here. I live in DC proper so I also spent time breaking the rules by training my Brittany off-leash in certain remote areas of the National Arboretum, also. Every once in a while you could hear gunfire, however it didn't come from me. I usually chalked it up as an exercise in steadiness training. Check the dates for dog training, though. Come dove season, you can close your eyes and you'd swear you're listening to range day at Quantico. 

Once you've got him started with gunfire training, you could also bring your dogs to local skeet and trap ranges. I know Bull Run will allow dogs to tag along on leash and I think PG County Skeet and Trap will allow dogs -but i'd check on  that. 

IWL is just also around the corner from McKee Beshers and also has great fields and facilities for members.

On Thursday, August 18, 2016 at 9:30:14 AM UTC-4, Tim Donaldson wrote:

Thanks Carl!  Just emailed IWL about membership.  

Tim

On Wednesday, August 17, 2016 at 4:24:22 PM UTC-4, Carl wrote:

There are also some dog training clubs that do trials at McKee Beshers.  If you are a member (or can tag along with a member) of one of the Izaak Walton League chapters, they are good go just take a dog and walk around while people are firing guns.   And if you are interested in Hunting, they are good for going out to practice.

Carl

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Carl Zmola

On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 7:40 PM, Joseph Kowalski <joseph.c...@gmail.com> wrote:

Is McKee Beshers too far?  Check out the MD DNR website for the WMA for retriever training rules.

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