# Golden Retriever for Upland Birds???



## Landon DeKeyser (Nov 1, 2016)

Hey Everyone,

I have a 5 month old Golden Retriever puppy. He is the third Golden I have had in my life. The first 2 were pretty much useless as retrievers. They might bring a ball back once if you were lucky. Which comes as now surprise because golden's have mainly been bread for pets for a long time now. 

Denver (my current golden) on the other hand is very enthusiastic about retrieving. He will play fetch until my arm gets tired. He is also very interested in birds. He points at my parents chickens and spots any bird flying overhead. 

So I have 3 questions. 

Has anyone here ever used a golden for upland game birds?

I have no real experience training a dog outside of general obedience. Where do I even start? Can anyone point me to an outline of what formal training would look like?

Would it be easier to train a dock to be a retriever for duck hunting instead?

Forgive my ignorance. I am not much of a bird hunter. The thing that really draws me to it is that I could hunt with my dog.

Thanks,

Landon DeKeyser


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## high brass (Dec 28, 2010)

A friend of mine had a male golden in the late 70's that was an excellent pheasant dog. Sounds like your pup has potential. Good luck.


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## Lamarsh (Aug 19, 2014)

We've owned 6 goldens, all coming from bench/conformation lines. Only one of them showed potential for retrieving drive. Such fantastic family dogs though. 

That, however, is not to say excellent lines of field bred goldens do not exist, as they certainly do, and enough breeders consistently titling their dogs to shut up any nay sayers. Also, there are always some bench bred goldens that show that retriever instinct buried in their DNA, like yours. 

Goldens, compared to the lab, are usually regarded as more biddible / easier to train, but not as hard charging. They take very well to learning, love the water and love pleasing their owners. If the retriever instinct is there, explore it further.

So, to answer your duck hunting question, if your golden shows retriever instinct and drive, I think you can train him to be a duck dog. It is not as simple as playing fetch, however. To do it properly, you'll have to pick a retriever training program and stick to it. I would recommend making sure you properly do force fetch and collar conditioning; however, if you feel confident training your dog without an e collar, it is not impossible, but you'll need patience and a solid program to follow, with obedience being a very important foundation. If you just want a dog to get your ducks, you might opt to only take him to the point of running simple single and double marks, and not invest time in training him to run complicated blinds and such. You could also opt to send him to a pro trainer for 1-2 months and just tell them I want a duck dog, do all you can in X amount of time. If you opt to train yourself, get on it NOW. 5 months old you still have plenty of time, but you are now losing some critical time to take advantage of while your pup is like a sponge to absorb new information and such. 

As far as upland training goes, goldens seem to be much less commonly found in the upland than in the duck blind. If you wanted a golden for upland hunting, you may go search for breeders who focus on this, as they do exist, but since you already have your dog the only thing you can do is put him on birds and see what he does. Most training programs have a section dedicated to a clipped wing pigeon retrieve, which is a good start. If he shows some nuttiness to that wing flapping motion and smell of the birds, hope is there. You could then move to planting birds and see how he does just instinctively finding them.


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## N M Mechanical (Feb 7, 2008)

There is plenty of goldens at hunt test every weekend.


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## Landon DeKeyser (Nov 1, 2016)

Lamarsh said:


> We've owned 6 goldens, all coming from bench/conformation lines. Only one of them showed potential for retrieving drive. Such fantastic family dogs though.
> 
> Thanks for the detailed reply! The whole hunting idea was really an after thought. Mainly because he shows signs of having the instinct.
> 
> ...


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## Buckbaker (Aug 3, 2015)

Years ago my buddy had a great Golden.Not just a great pet but a great retriever. We used him to hunt everything, ducks, pheasants, grouse, and even rabbits. He was a little too laid back to be a great pheasant dog,they would run and he had a hard time getting them to flush, but he was fantastic on grouse (yes a fantastic grouse dog that was a flusher). Best of all that dog would retrieve everything we dropped.
My friends next golden however....well he was a good pet.


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## Lamarsh (Aug 19, 2014)

Or you could end up with a golden that is like this around ducks: 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BMSSfLShrnm/?taken-by=worldoflabs


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## Wallywarrior (Apr 1, 2016)

I have had multiple Goldens that were all excellent upland bird dogs. Only issue we ever had with them was the long hair. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## N M Mechanical (Feb 7, 2008)

A hunt test is a test that judges a dog to a standard/ level of training to pass said test. They have these test for retrievers and upland dogs.
There are many goldens from show lines and field lines


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## NATTY BUMPO (May 12, 2001)

Landon DeKeyser said:


> Hey Everyone,
> 
> I have a 5 month old Golden Retriever puppy. He is the third Golden I have had in my life. The first 2 were pretty much useless as retrievers. They might bring a ball back once if you were lucky. Which comes as now surprise because golden's have mainly been bread for pets for a long time now.
> 
> ...


I have hunted over several Golden's that did an excellent job in the uplands in the Dakotas on pheasants. But I have never seen one in the grouse woods.


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## Dozer-n-dayla (Aug 29, 2014)

Landon DeKeyser said:


> Hey Everyone,
> 
> I have a 5 month old Golden Retriever puppy. He is the third Golden I have had in my life. The first 2 were pretty much useless as retrievers. They might bring a ball back once if you were lucky. Which comes as now surprise because golden's have mainly been bread for pets for a long time now.
> 
> ...


I had some goldens ,one of them was outstanding in the uplands, the only bad part was pheasant hunting and burrs! He worked close and retrieved woodcock grouse and pheasant !


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## Buckbaker (Aug 3, 2015)

My buddies golden was probably best with grouse. He worked close and slow so he never bumped them. And his retrieving was so good we never doubted his skills. Usually we just talked about the shot or whatever until he came back with the bird. We never thought he might need help or anything.


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## Dozer-n-dayla (Aug 29, 2014)

Buckbaker said:


> My buddies golden was probably best with grouse. He worked close and slow so he never bumped them. And his retrieving was so good we never doubted his skills. Usually we just talked about the shot or whatever until he came back with the bird. We never thought he might need help or anything.


Same! I would just stand in the same spot and wait,he always came back with the bird! One time I shot a woodcock over the east branch of the escanaba river and that dog went straight down about a 20' bank , went down stream snatched up the woodcock, swam back up stream to where he went down the bank and clawed his way backup to where I was lying down reaching to help pull him up the last 5 feet! He barely made it up!!one of the best dogs I've ever had!


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## Landon DeKeyser (Nov 1, 2016)

Well you guys have got me excited to start training my dog. I guess I wont know for sure until I try it. Have any of you read any good books or know any good placed that cover the beginning stages of training?


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## RonSwanson (Apr 20, 2016)

Finding game and bringing it back to you is somewhere (maybe) in its genes. I have never done so personally but have met others who hunt with them. What's the worse that can happen?


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## i missed again (Sep 7, 2008)

first dog i hunted with was a golden didn't take him hunting till he was 7 yr old. He was a good upland dog and i rarely lost a downed bird. I always wondered how good he could have bean if i had started him earlier


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## Far Beyond Driven (Jan 23, 2006)

Buddy is on his third Golden, the last one cost about as much as my car and comes from a kennel that breeds the line for nothing but hunting.

We've shot ducks / geese / pigeons / chukars / woodcock and I missed several grouse over him. Great dog.

Another buddy had one from back yard breeding that was clueless, and ruined several hunts until it was either the dog stays home or you don't come along.


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## chuckinduck (May 28, 2003)

I have a golden that actually came from a show line that turned out to be a great pheasant dog and did a good job at ducks too. I've hunted him for partridge with some success but the ranging was a bit to much. He's getting up there in age so I pick when and where I hunt him now. Last year at 11 years old he had a 150yard retrieve that I thought was going to kill him. 20 mins later he was back in the water retrieving a 12lb goose. For upland birds get show sheen for horses and trim him up for the fall. It'll help in keeping the burrs to a minimum. If trained right they are great bird dogs despite the bad rap some give them.


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## Lamarsh (Aug 19, 2014)

Landon DeKeyser said:


> Well you guys have got me excited to start training my dog. I guess I wont know for sure until I try it. Have any of you read any good books or know any good placed that cover the beginning stages of training?


There's a lot out there. I picked Fowl Dawgs (Stawski) DVDs as my training program. It's decent, works for me, and the price was right. Lardy's notebooks and DVDs appear to favored more by the serious trialers and pros, and it does cost more. 

Before I got the DVDs and before I even got my dog, I read Richard Wolters' Game Dog. It's an old book, and I didn't follow much of his actual retriever training process, but it gave me a solid concept of what it takes to train a retriever. I did use his puppy training process, and that worked well. It's a fun read while waiting for a dog anyways.


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## Landon DeKeyser (Nov 1, 2016)

My puppy is definitely not from show lines or a hunting lines either. He is actually the nephew I guess lol of my last Golden (a dog who would slowly walk to retrieve a ball and never ever give it back in fear you would throw it again). Which is why I have been so surprised with is instincts.

Lamarash - Thanks I will check those out.

I took him out in the woods tonight to observer how he works the ground. He seams to have an idea for what he is doing. He always stays out in front of me 5-15 yards sweeping back and forth nose to the ground the whole time.

One of my best friends Dads is a dog breader and trainer for upland game dogs. He has some chuckars right now and said I can buy some off of him to see how my dog reacts. I am going to try and get over there with my dog this weekend to see how it goes. I'll let you guys know!


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