Train Terriers For Hunting

Though you may consider your terrier to be a wonderful pet, fact remains that these little dogs have traditionally been used for hunting purposes. Though many terriers are now wonderful watchdogs and especially good with children, many continue to display their hunting instincts now and then.

If you would like to take your terrier with you when you go hunting, you may want to provide some basic hunting training to it. In fact, by training your terrier to follow the scent of the quarry and leading you to it, you can then concentrate entirely on your target.

The best way to teach your terrier is by starting with simple fetch techniques. For example, a tennis ball or any soft toy that it finds attractive to play with is a good target. Do not use anything that is available for your terrier to play with all the time since it may quickly lose interest in trying to fetch the object. Let the dog watch you throw it some distance and teach it to wait till you give the command to fetch. At first, this may be difficult because the dog may be too impatient to wait for your command. However, slowly it will learn to wait patiently till you give the command to go fetch the object.

The next step would be to close your dog’s eyes when you throw the object. Take care that you do not scare your terrier when you try closing its eyes. Hold your pet close to you as you gently cover its eyes and then throw the object. This time the dog would not have seen where it would have fallen and will have to follow the scent of the object to track it and retrieve it.

Slowly you can start taking your terrier into areas where there is tall grass to hone it’s scenting and hunting skills. Remember to reward your dog for its efforts every time it successfully manages to find and retrieve the object.

To help your terrier pick out smells easily and use them for tracking purposes, try covering the object of the hunt in different bags so that it is well trained to pick up all kinds of smells. Also, place the bag in different places to train the dog to consistently use its instincts to hunt out the object.

Finally, you may want to introduce the smell of the quarries you would be looking for, to your terrier. Allow it to hunt for the quarry in familiar surroundings to begin with. Then as you think it has acquired the basic hunting skills, you can start to take your terrier to hunting grounds and allow it to get familiar with the terrain and more importantly, the sounds of gunshot.

For a few days, your terrier may successfully hunt down your quarry but then be uncertain about what to do. Encourage your terrier to keep hunting whenever you take him out with you and eventually it will learn to not only track down the target but also alert you to it by barking or making biting sounds.

While terriers may need some training, their instincts have already prepared them to be good hunting dogs.