Horn hunting with a dog.

Im thinking of trying to teach our new pup how to horn hunt. Anyone with any good suggestions?

If you find out let me know. Daughter has a yellow lab that I would like to have, but don't want to keep him penned in a small back yard. Just couldn't do that to him, but her and grandsons don't work with him much so would like to get him out to stretch his legs.

I want to try to teach my lab also. I work with antler some and he'll dig in my box and take one out and try to steal one. Want to try hiding some around the yard and working with him on retrieving them.

I am training my new springer pup to find horns. Its pretty easy really... Get a couple horns, fresh browns I think would be best, but in time you'll want to mix in old whites so they dont get fixated on just the smell of a fresh brown...

If your pups are anything like all the pups I've been around... you can take the horn and wave it around and such and get them to grab it and want to play with it. Do this whenever you can... I started this just a couple weeks ago and all the time I told him, "Horn" (I just call them horns for simplicity, I guess shed would work too, but I dont want to use antler....too many syllables!)... So I give him the horn and say "horn".. then I'll toss it a few feet and say, "find the horn"...he'll go over and grab it... and I"ll praise him and tell him, "you got the horn" "thats a horn" good boy....

About the last two weeks he's started retrieving pretty good, so now I am up to the point where I can toss the horn 30 feet in the yard and tell him to "find the horn" and he'll run out and grab it... as he's running back I praise him and use the word "horn" alot...

In the next month, I am going to work with several horns in the grass. I'm gonna put them out, then get him and go for a walk. When we get close to one or if he sees one and runs to it I'll tell him to "find the horn" and when he grabs it I'll praise him like crazy. My plan is to be able to put 5-10 horns in the yard and let him out the door and tell him to "find the horns" and he'll bring them all up to the deck. It'll take time, but i think it will happen.

I'll keep ya posted on how it goes. I am psyched to do this in the whitetail bottoms here where horns can be just feet away and you never see them!!!

sounds awesome please do keep me posted i am very interested to see how it goes for you

Will do!

I do have some training to do yet, as yesterday he evidently chewed the tips off a couple tines of a nice moose shed I had in the flower garden.....

If you don't have any luck with yours, you can always drop $6,500 for one of these

http://www.antlerdogs.com/Store/D-2/Dogs.aspx

Dammmmmmmm!!!!!

Give me a break.