Need to get my vizsla on more quail before season runs out... Released birds she is catching to often need to get her on wild birds or really really good flight conditioned birds.

She is still young and I have to hunt he alone still dealing with issues with occasional looking for the shot and or reacting to the shot by looking at the gunner. Think it's just a matter of the more birds the better and my lease just went to the bank for failure to pay. Not the way I wanted to be at the peak of bird season.

If you don't find a day lease, you might consider buying chukar. They fly better than pen raise quail. Another option would be pigeons.

Agree with kindell
If you plant the pigeon in a launcher and tie a 20 foot tether to the pigeon the pigeon will fall to the ground Fire a blank shot when the pigeon reaches the end of the tether. No need for a gunner

Day leases are simply not available anymore. You are training your pup to catch pen raised quail. What you really need to do is to give up shooting for awhile and get the pup broke. It's boring but you have to either give up the gun or get help. Here's a good start;


All bird dogs point. The breaking process teaches them to hold point. There are two ways to teach a dog to hold point, with dozens of variations. The first way is to let the birds train the pups. That generally involves launchers and pigeons, with some whoa breaking mixed in. It's very effective. I use the Delmar Smith method, substituting the e-collar for the bump under the chin. My dogs are completely whoa broke before I put them on birds. I use pen raised quail, because I can be done with them for the summer. I like to start in August, and finish in time for hunting season.

I start off on the whoa post. I introduce the e-collar the same day, that I introduce the whoa post. Here's cracker on her first day with the whoa post;



I keep them on the whoa post only until I can get out in front of them, and then go to the yard for heel and whoa. Cracker tended to sit, so I had to start with the suitcase hitch. I go from the yard to longer walks. The pup has pretty well gotten it down after three weeks.



I then go from the walks to whoa in the field. Here's Cracker in the field in the field, before I put her on birds. This whole process has taken me around four weeks.



This is her first day on birds. I train alone, so I had to plant the bird, where I could wrap the CC around a bush. Notice the slack CC.



I kept her on the CC for three training days. She only went around on the bird one time. Here she is after 9 training flushes.




I started walking some of the birds out after a few days. Here you go;




A lot depends on the pup, and you have to adjust for each pup. Cracker has never taken out a single pointed bird or covey.

I don't know where you are located and if not too far from me you should come visit the club. We have pigeons, launchers,very flighty quail, and collars if you do not have one and I am available to hel you get your dog under control before he develops long term bad habits.

Give me a call

shooterwalter

I should have been more clear. After reading my post again the mind and finger must not be working well with the medication. We have her broke we have hunted over several released birds, but wanted to have her on wild birds before the season ends. We lost our hunting lease (this seems to be a reoccur theme the last couple of years), where we are going to continue to supplement flight ready birds. So I was in hopes to locate some wild birds or other options..

I am picking up some flight ready birds tomorrow morning and head to friends mother in laws to get her out at least for the weekend. Just thought that wild birds may improve her concentration since she might push a covey and cause them to flush early, she has only hunted this season and I just trying to keep her moving forward and progressing through. She has a consistent retrieving issue, another item we are working on finishing.

Panhandle