#it isnt so much as 'teach your dog to find mallards and theyll find ducks'

[abirddogmoment]

Do you know how specific scent training is? Like if you train a dog to find mallards they can find other ducks, but they're not going to indicate at sparrows for instance. So how specific is it?

Hi! So short answer - depends on the dog and how well they contextualize.

If you have a dog predisposed to finding birds, they're probably going to find all birds and then generally learn which ones you (the human) care about. So say for example your dog shows you a crow, a sparrow, a mallard, a teal, and a finch. You reward the mallard and the teal, and you ignore the others. Eventually your dog will release that you only care about some birds and their indication on crows and sparrows amd finches will fade.

If, on the other hand, you have to teach a dog to indicate birds from scratch, you might have to contextualize more. So you'd teach your dog that you reward when they look at ducks in a pond, and then they'd seek out ducks in a pond (hopefully). Then you'd have to teach that you reward when they find ducks in a field. Then ducks on a path in the woods. Then you might have to teach them that you don't care about herons in the pond. And so on and on, depending how quickly they understand what you're rewarding.

It really depends on what connection your dog makes in their puppy brain, and there isn't a good way to control that. But it's a fun thing to try anyway, especially if it's something you and your dog find enriching!

#asks #anon #it isnt so much as 'teach your dog to find mallards and theyll find ducks' #thats not the best example because usually you dont use a dog to find ducks #(ducks live in water so you just go around to ponds to look for them) #a better example is if you teach your dog to find spruce grouse they might find other grouse #but thats not really true either #generally for bird dogs you need to train them on each species you want to hunt #which makes sense because each species lives in different habitats in different environments #so you might have to run your dog in forests for spruce grouse AND alpine terrain for ptarms AND fields for sharpies #before they understand what theyre looking for #its obviously easier for dogs predisposed to finding birds #because they only need a few encounters to form a strong connection #but baby bird dogs point or flush songbirds all the time! #you just have to reward what you want them to find and ignore what you dont want #and hope they make the correct associations in their puppy brains #i looooove talking about this btw #i have read and watched sooooo much on bird dog training for aroris #i am so happy to answer these tysm