shed dogs

[elkhuntingcouple]

My German Shepherd is getting old 12years and we may have to replace him sometime. Not looking forward to that day. Just the other day a neighbors dog attacked my sister in law and my old shepherd put himself in the way. took the beating from the young dog to protect her. He is a great old man!!
I am wondering if anyone out there has used a shepherd for shed hunting? And do you train them simular to a bird dog? I have trained a lab when I was a kid to retrive ducks when shot, but other than that just trained to sit, stay, lay, come normal command stuff. i think this would be a great joy for me and my husband to do as we both love the out doors and hunting etc.

 

[fatrooster]

elkhuntingcouple,
look at deersheddog.com and you will see that this guy uses crossbreed dogs. Most people like to use labs but I imagine lots of breeds can be used. Also look at antlerdogs.com and somewhere on this site you will see that this guy uses labs but also has a shed hunting pit bull. German Shepards are very smart dogs and are used by the police as drug sniffing dogs among other things. One more website for you to look at- ventosakennel.com where as these people train police dogs and antler dogs. Sorry to hear that you are close to losing your old friend. I lost my old dog in December after having her for 13 years. It was not easy. I now owne two lab pups and I am training them for antler hunting. Hope all of this helps you out. fatrooster.

 

[timberline_shedfreak24]

Love mine!

Timberline

http://www.timberlineoutfittersnevada.com/

 

[rookieray]

Does training a dog to shed hunt ruin them as a bird dog, or can you do both? I have a year old lab that I have been training for bird hunting. I have used antlers for retrieving since she was a pup and she loves them, so it might not be to much work to get her to be a shed dog. I just want to make sure it wont compromise her bird hunting.

 

[fatrooster]

rookieray, I'm not worthy to answer that question but I can tell you what I read on antlerdogs.com. Its hard to take a bird dog and teach it to hunt antlers because after a dog has hunted live animals or I should say dead "live animals" then its hard to get them to stay focused on an object such as a plain ole antler. In your case it may be an exception because you've already got her retrieving antlers but to make a long story short I believe that bird hunting would do more damage to antler hunting then antler hunting would do to bird hunting. For more info you could go to antlerdogs.com and get on thier forum and ask this question. fatrooster.

 

[rookieray]

Thanks Rooster,
I will have to get on the site you mentioned and see what they say.

 

[TwoLabs]

RookieRay - I have a 3 year old black Lab that is a ball of fire and a 8 year old Chocolate Lab. Last year was my first year of agressively hunting antlers. I just began playing fetch with the dogs using antlers I found. They both loved to retrieve them. As we hunted the dogs would get excited, tails started wagging fast and they would speed up. That meant birds were around and they flushed hundreds of them. When they came near antlers or bones they acted like they were hunting agressively but they didn't have that high energy look. It was pretty easy to tell if it were birds or antlers.

Any antler I spotted and the dogs got to first they would return pick it up and return it to me. I could send them across a canyon or up a hill and they would bring pick the antler. The black lab found only one horn that I did not see first but it was a 5 point elk rack. He will bring back winter kill bones also. All of this was without any training before the season.

This year I have worked hard with them and we play hide n seek with antlers. They are also very excited when I bring out the antlers. I haven't had a chance to try them out yet this year because of the snow and not wanting to both the game. I'll keep you posted once we begin to hunt.

 

[fatrooster]

TwoLabs, sounds like a couple of awesome dogs. Got any pictures? fatrooster.

 

[timberline_shedfreak24]

Labs are the way to go.

Timberline

http://www.timberlineoutfittersnevada.com/

 

[antlerquest]

this is my GSD his name is salmo. he picks um up for me some times. he has brought me around 20 to 30 sheds. not alot but he does pick them up and bring them to me.

i just let him have some smaller horns to chew on when he was a pup and still to this day he gets to chew on them.
wes.

 

[Huntemup]

LAST EDITED ON Feb-28-08 AT 12:05PM (MST)[p]LAST EDITED ON Feb-28-08 AT 11:54 AM (MST)

German Sheperds vs. Labs for antler hunting? I don't think you can go wrong with either...however I'm pretty partial towards labs! My dad & brother also have labs that pick up antlers too. German Sheperds are very smart dogs though, so they definitely have great potential.

I love to brag about my huntin' companion, Buck! He will hunt for both birds & bones. The only drawback that I have found is that I spend way more time hunting antlers than birds, so Buck's mouth is a little hard for birds, but he still gets the job done. I just get a few tenderized birds every so often!

I'm sure you've seen some of these pictures on here before but I thought I'd post 'em again for those who haven't. I have some new ones from this year already...I'll post them later. Most of these are not "staged" pictures...I've learned to keep my camera handy so I can get pictures of him finding & retrieving antlers. I've also got quite a bit of video of him picking up sheds. Sometimes I'll spot them from several hundred yards away, but won't say anything to him to see if he'll find 'em on his own. Most of time he does. If I had to estimate, I'd guess that Buck has picked up well over 200 deer & elk sheds & heads in his 8.5 years of hunting.

Happy hunting & training everybody!

 

[Bambistew]

Great pictures huntemup!

 

[fatrooster]

Huntemup and antlerquest, thanks for the pictures. Loved them. Lets see more. fatrooster.

 

[Huntemup]

I believe you hit the nail right on the head, fatrooster. I've also seen the same thing happen with lion dogs. Once they've experienced the chase, antlers become boring.