Home Forums Birds & Dogs Hunting Dogs Breaking a bird dog of field mice...

This is our first serious hunting season, and I've discovered that my 1.5 year old French Brittany loves finding and catching field mice... When he gets the scent of a pheasant, he becomes a pointed statue, but unfortunately there aren't very many pheasants were we hunt, so I think he's getting the impression we are out there for mice and not birds... Not sure how to help this. Any suggestions?

Pigeons. Lots of them. Buy or catch as many pigeons as you can. Keep the cage in the yard and let the dog worry the cage every day for a little bit. Plant them in the field by putting in a sack and spinning the sack to dizzy them and then place them on their back in the grass. Work the dog through the area of planted birds and shoot them after the point and flush. Repeat until the dog realizes birds are more fun.

Will he be a pigeon dog after that? or learn to appreciate quail and pheasant too?

He'll be a BIRD dog. They don't seem to note a difference between pigeons and pheasant, grouse, huns, doves.

Thanks for the info. When I first got him I also bought about 15 pheasant chicks, thinking I would raise them up and use them for training. It turns out I didn't know enough about raising birds to keep them all around by the time they were old enough. I will look around for a place to buy pigeons. I think you're right, full grown pigeons he can find, then retrieve will at least give him an idea of what we want to do, not to mention it'll give me some practice taking birds out of the air...

Most people trap their pigeons.

As above, simple trap baited with cracked corn or birdseed and placed in a good spot will render all the pigeons a guy wants or needs. Me and 2 buddies run 2 traps every spring while training hard.

One is under an old wooden bridge and one is on the eave of a farmers barn. Both are typically good for 6-8 pigeons a day as long as we leave them out. We typically trap a few days and have enough birds to train for a few weeks.

Not wanting to sound flippant but I'd get a field mouse, paint it liberally with tabasco, and let him 'catch' it....don't egg him on or anything, disassociate yourself from the mouse as much as possible....

Hunting dogs hunt. A young dog like this should have one mode of operation in the field - full scale hunting mode. Be happy he is hunting mice, sparrows, or butterflies. Encourage and praise him no matter what the game is, but enforce your parameters on range. Eventually you'll have to get the dog around some pheasants and if you do his interest will start to focus. Nothing bad happens to a dog encountering 'game' his first season. Save the tabasco sauce for the chili.

+1 on what JOG says

My dog loved catching mice his first year and it made me soo mad but I got some good advice to just let it go. I got him on as many birds as I could and he forgot about mice by his second season. When they're young they catch what they can sometimes it is POOP!

Yep..far from a pro here, but let him hunt..after he gets birds in his blood take it from there..my dog knew what "no" meant.when he was mousing instead of birding, a simple "no" would send him on his way.its all repetition, after awhile he didnt pay much if any attention to rodents.."no" even worked stopping rabbit chases.

Sounds like it may stem from bordom/lack of birds?

Tabasco aint a bad idea tho IMO, if its a pretty consistant problem.getting him into more birds will be the best cure.

Not trying to sound like a wise arse but go get some birds. My bird dogs play around with field mice when they get bored, but if there any game birds in the area, they are all bizsness! It sounds like your Brit knows what to do when he gets a whiff of the real deal, now it's up to you to get him out where the birds are...

Thanks for all the feedback!

In the field i did find that if i caught him chasing a mouse scent right away, a sharp no and a vibration from his training collar would almost immediately sent him searching for birds again... I'm glad to hear this is somewhat common in the upland community... I do think if he found more birds his interests would shift dramatically, the problem is here in the Willamette valley there is only one place to hunt pheasant, and its in a wildlife management area. This area is over hunted, it has taken four hours to find one bird...

Pigeon catching sounds like a great training strategy to get blaze on some birds more frequently. I watched the training video 'the perfect start' as a guideline for training blaze, and they emphasized needing lots of birds to give the dog experience pointing and flushing on command.

What kind of trap should i use for catching pigeons?

You can buy specialty pigeon traps that work well. To be honest, I catch them by hand. We have a lot of grain bins in the area that are no longer in use. There are often hundreds of pigeons in these. All one has to do is put a chunk of plywood over the top of the bin or close the lid if it's still there and go through the side door with a headlamp. I've taken over a hundred from one bin by just picking them up and putting them in the cage. They get tired of flying and sit on the floor. A local guy had a pigeon shoot here last summer, over 500 pigeons, all caught just as I've described.

They can be caught by hand as described above, the major caution being leery of there is water in the bin as fermented grain off gases poisonous gases that deplete the enviroment of oxygen.

I use an old shrimp trap that I opened the narrow coned entrances ever so slightly. They have to squish there way in then can't get out. Bait it with cracked corn and empty every couple of days.

I've used pigeon traps in the past, under bridges or more often in a farmer friend's barn. You can usually get plenty of birds in a few days.

I won't go into a closed grain bin without at least a tight-fighting surgical mask. The moulds that grow in birdshit in closed spaces like grain bins can make you reallly, really sick.

Pigeons are great training material for gun dogs.

yep...a stern word is all it ever took for my brittany to pass on the rodents pretty quick...
Rabbits, now that another story all togeather...My brittany and I have killed alot of rabbits that she not only pointed but would retrieve after the shot.. and that was just fine in my book... that was just part of here job...but even on the bunnys she was always steady to the shot... I personaly would'nt of wanted her any other way, but then we don't live in a bird haven either.

Great advice! Shoot a lot of BIRDS over the dog and make it more fun than a barrel full of UCLA cheerleaders.

Check the local craig's list and free ad rags, I occasionally see bird traps for sale. You can usually catch a few each day.

I took an 8 inch piece of automotive heater hose and threaded two ankle nooses thru one end. shake up the birds as mentioned and stick them down in the grass, the hose anchor keeps 'em down and the dog will respond really well to the birds.

My shorthair is a hunter, he loves mice, rabbits and squirrels, but gets in line pretty quick when we are lookin for birds.

I'd take that scarf off of him....poor dog!!!

Pigeons have a great scent cone, which simulates that of a larger bird, and or a group of smaller birds. Plus if you raise them on your own, they will return home after a days training, especially if he doesn't hold point, you'll teach him that if doesn't hold point, he won't get the bird.

If you decide to raise some good pigeons, you have to wait until they lay some eggs and hatch them.....there are some good pigeon books out there with a ton of helpful ideas.