STARTING YOUR PUP TOO EARLY!

[Guest Nightwalker]

I didn't notice anyone getting upset.

 

This topic comes up from time to time, a lot of people only want a dog they can hold on a piece of string and then slip down the beam of lamp or after one of those daytime rabbits and a lot more live in cities with only occassional trips into the countryside.

 

If you want to produce a real hunter rather than something that just runs down the beam etc you have to start early, have the dog out with you in the countryside every day and allow the dog to follow scents, listen, watch, stalk game, make mistakes, run and and learn through experience how to catch different kinds of game.

 

Pups and saplings play boistrously and love to run, whats the difference between a pup making 100 yard dash after a rabbit and a pup running a 100 yards with a neighbour's dog - why should one be a no-no and not the other? What the difference between a couple of minutes spent coursing your mates terrier round the park and a couple of bends put into a hare? As I have said, the art is not to overstretch the pup and to stop it from getting badly hurt.