Hare drag demonstration
Posted March 14th, 2009 6 Comments
This is the first of a few videos I am putting together to show some of the basic training required for the German Hunt Qualifications (VJP, HZP, VGP).
This video shows my 9 month old puppy, ‘Ayscha’ doing her first hare drag in our back garden. Notice how she runs past the hare at the end of the drag as despite it being right in front of her, she is using her nose, not her eyes to find it and only turns when she realises the scent trail has ended. This is a good sign.
I have been training her for about 4 weeks now and has been learning to carry various game, to sit to present retrieves by a hand signal (not voice) and not to release game until told to – these are very important basics without which she cannot proceed.
She has already done some basic drags of rabbits and pheasants, but not where she has to retrieve them – simply to follow the scent trail for about 100 metres.
In a VJP she only has to follow a scent trail of a live hare that has run (but not been seen by her), however she is expected to follow the track accurately for several hundred metres.
In the later HZP, she will not only have to follow the track but must also retrieve the game. She will do a dragged pheasant or duck and a dragged rabbit or hare on a track of up to 300 meters long with 2 acute angles in the track.
This example is the start of moving from VJP training (she will be doing hers in Germany in about a month’s time) to the HZP training (which she will do in about 6 month’s time).
To teach this it is vital that the wind is behind you blowing away from the dog so that it has to keep its nose low to follow the scent.
Jon Sharpe responds:
Posted: March 15th, 2009 at 4:49 pm →
Was interesting how she followed her nose straight past until the scent ended. Was really good, Thankyou.
mark hodgkinson responds:
Posted: March 15th, 2009 at 9:06 pm →
Hey Pete great vid, can see you have been putting lots of time and effort in,maybe get to see more of you in 09! hope so, Er looked realy hard but couldent see Max doing the weeding? so maybe she was doing the HOOVERING instead!! just a thought!!!
Rae Bank (NZ) responds:
Posted: March 19th, 2009 at 11:08 pm →
Fantastic – how good is she – now can you train Bolt to do that in the next 3 weeks?
Guess I am gonna have to find a rabbit for this…. not too many round our way since they released the caleci virus a few years back …. She looks mighty happy doing it and mighty pleased with herself too – what a sweety
gordon kirkwood responds:
Posted: March 25th, 2009 at 6:52 pm →
Hi Peter having trouble getting the hare track video to run on pc anything needed to run this one
Many thanks Gordon
And good luck for the test
Peter McCullough responds:
Posted: April 3rd, 2009 at 7:01 am →
Hi Gordon,
It is an MP4 file so the only requirement is it requires a reasonably up to date version of Flash installed in your browser (version 9.0 or higher).
James Johnston responds:
Posted: September 1st, 2009 at 10:05 am →
That dog was realy useing her nose!!! Good retrieve.