Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 514: Foundations - How to Train a Shed Antler Dog

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Ep. 514: Foundations - How to Train a Shed Antler Dog · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson. Hey, everyone, welcome to the wire to
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Hunt Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: about shed dogs and how to train them. Today's show
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: is all about a topic that people seem to love,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: shed dogs. I think a lot of them love the
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: idea of a dog that can find shed antlers, but
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: it probably won't greatly change the amount of sheds you find.
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  Speaker 1: It's still fun, and if you do have a shed dog,
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  Speaker 1: you'll become a better deer hunter, which might seem crazy,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: but I'll explain what I mean throughout this episode. Yeah,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: the first dog that I trained to be a shed
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  Speaker 1: antler dog was my Golden Retriever Lux. She wasn't okay
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: hunting dog, but simply loved to retrieve. In fact, I
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: trained her to retrieve antlers, ducks, upland bird, squirrels and
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: eventually rabbits. And now I know you're not supposed to
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: take a pheasant dog and let it retrieve a rabbit,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: but I did it. Anyway, and it taught me a
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: couple of things. The first is that not all rules
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: apply to all situations, obviously, but also that a lot
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: of the rabbits we shot at with shotguns would make
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  Speaker 1: it into a brush pile and then die. The dog
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  Speaker 1: would slither in there and retrieve them, and it was
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: an eye opener. This happened quite a bit with snowshoe
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: hairs too. But anyway, back to shed dogs. Lux was
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: a good shed dog and she found a few when
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: she died. I trained my next pup to find sheds,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: and it was a glorious day when she brought me
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: a little three point side for the first time while
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: my wife and I were hiking through a local park
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: by the house. That dog, Luna, is still a shed hunter,
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  Speaker 1: but I've learned that the best retriever out there will
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: only take you so far with sheds if your personal
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  Speaker 1: shed hunting situation kind of sucks, which mine does. Dogs
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  Speaker 1: do find antlers, we don't, or I should say dogs
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: will find landlers, we won't, which is the whole point.
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  Speaker 1: But there are other benefits of training a shed dog,
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  Speaker 1: and I'll get into that at the end of this show.
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  Speaker 1: For now, I just want to go through a little
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  Speaker 1: bit of the process. So for starters, any dog could
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  Speaker 1: theoretically be a shed dog. If you've got a dog
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  Speaker 1: that will retrieve something, you've got much of the problem licked.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, hunting breeds tend to be more popular for
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: a couple of reasons. The first is that many of
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: them are bred to retrieve, and we expect and in
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: herge that behavior out of them. The second is that
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  Speaker 1: if you buy a hunting dog for hunting, you're a
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  Speaker 1: hell of a lot more likely to care about deer
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  Speaker 1: antlers than a soccer mom in San Francisco with a
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  Speaker 1: French bulldog in her arms. The key to a shed
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  Speaker 1: dog is the desire to retrieve. If you have a
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  Speaker 1: dog that loves to bring you stuff, your task is
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  Speaker 1: gonna be pretty easy. If you have a dog that
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  Speaker 1: is lukewarm on retrieving antlers might be a bridge too far.
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  Speaker 1: It's worth a shot though either way. Now, the thing
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: was shed antlers is that they differ from everything else
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  Speaker 1: that we hunt with Our dogs are probably just about
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: everything else, and that they don't really give off any scent.
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  Speaker 1: Give off a little, but a living breathing pheasant gives
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  Speaker 1: off a ton of scent, little quail too, ducks, grouse,
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  Speaker 1: prairie chickens, whatever. If it's alive now or was very
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: recently alive, and it has feathers, you can bet that
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  Speaker 1: it's giving off ent that his orders of magnitude greater
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  Speaker 1: than a chunk of bone that fell off a buck's
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  Speaker 1: head six weeks ago. Now, there is a waxy substance
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: at the base of really freshly cast antlers that the
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  Speaker 1: dogs can undoubtedly smell. If you want to try to
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: mimic this doc and Dog supply sells something called rack wax.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: And here's a fun fact for you. The golden Retriever
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  Speaker 1: in the photo on the package of rack Wax is
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  Speaker 1: lux mild dog. The fingers in the photo belonged to
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  Speaker 1: my wife, who, on that day of that photo shoot,
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  Speaker 1: hit me square in the nuts with an antler that
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  Speaker 1: she threw from thirty ft away. The five photos I
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  Speaker 1: shot of that antler flying my way in the air
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  Speaker 1: while squatting down like a catcher in a baseball game
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  Speaker 1: show her face going from surprise to shit eating grin
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  Speaker 1: as she realized she's about to tend ring my apple
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  Speaker 1: bag and drop me right to the ground, which is
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  Speaker 1: exactly what happened. You can use rack wax to teach
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  Speaker 1: your dog to key in on the smell of an antler,
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  Speaker 1: much like would with a bumper or a dummy. The
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  Speaker 1: catch here is that the dog is far more likely
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  Speaker 1: the key in on the smell of your hands than anything,
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  Speaker 1: so if you want to do it right, the best
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  Speaker 1: way I found was to throw a couple of antlers
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  Speaker 1: and some gloves in a tote with an ozone unit.
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  Speaker 1: After that, try not to touch the antler with your
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  Speaker 1: bare hands while applying rack wax and tossing the antler
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  Speaker 1: into the grass. Trust me, this exercise is an eye
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  Speaker 1: opener in dog scenting abilities. It's also an eye opener
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  Speaker 1: if you consider a deer to have similar old factory abilities,
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  Speaker 1: which I personally do. A dog that runs down wind
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  Speaker 1: of an antler you touched will smell it without trouble.
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  Speaker 1: Trust me, that same dog down wind of an antler
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  Speaker 1: that has been bathed in ozone will be a different story.
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  Speaker 1: They'll miss it every time if you do your job
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  Speaker 1: right and until you add some scent to it. That
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  Speaker 1: experience tells me that while most hunting situations with dogs
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  Speaker 1: involved heavy nosework, that hunting isn't one of them. It's
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  Speaker 1: more of a visual task. I'm not saying they don't
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  Speaker 1: use their noses, but they use their eyes is a lot.
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  Speaker 1: This is something I didn't really understand fully when I
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  Speaker 1: trained my first dog. I couldn't figure out why she
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  Speaker 1: would run way out into the field to look at
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  Speaker 1: a styrofoam cup or some other light colored piece of garbage.
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  Speaker 1: What she had learned was that antlers are light colored,
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  Speaker 1: and if she caught a glimpse of something similar in
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  Speaker 1: tone that didn't quite seem to belong in the woods
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  Speaker 1: or in the fields, she was going to go over
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  Speaker 1: there and investigate. Docin, who is one of the best
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  Speaker 1: dog trainers on the planet, is well aware of this,
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  Speaker 1: which is why he developed oversized antler silhouettes to train with.
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  Speaker 1: These larger than life cardboard cutouts provide a visual clue
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  Speaker 1: to beginner shed dogs that there is an antler right here,
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  Speaker 1: or sometimes a bumper or some other reward gets them
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  Speaker 1: to to connect. The look of an antler ties the
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  Speaker 1: shape to some kind of reward mark that good behavior,
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  Speaker 1: kind of like a I don't know, a neon bar
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  Speaker 1: sign in downtown Memphis, or maybe the golden arches glowing
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  Speaker 1: along an interstate after a fifty mile stretch and nothing
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  Speaker 1: but prairie. It gets your attention if you're so inclined
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  Speaker 1: to look for such things, and you're in the right
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  Speaker 1: mood when it comes to shed antlers, dogs just need
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  Speaker 1: to learn to look for them. They do this by
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  Speaker 1: first being introduced to antlers as a toy that can
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  Speaker 1: just be tossed and retrieved. For this intro work, a
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  Speaker 1: little antler that is dull is the ticket. You don't
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  Speaker 1: want to take your five month old pop out and
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  Speaker 1: toss the twenty four pound moose antler, obviously, but you
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  Speaker 1: also don't want that little pupster to chase a nice
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  Speaker 1: white tail shed and get poked right in the eye
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  Speaker 1: when it goes to grab it. That is not good
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  Speaker 1: intro work, my friends. Negative associations that happen with intro
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  Speaker 1: work like that can be devastating. If you don't believe that,
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  Speaker 1: ask someone who has had the unfortunate task of trying
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  Speaker 1: to train out gun shyness or water shyness and a dog.
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  Speaker 1: This usually lives in a world of damn close to impossible.
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  Speaker 1: When there is a positive association attached to something like
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  Speaker 1: an antler. You can start to work in varied environments
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  Speaker 1: to make it a little more like a hunt. I
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  Speaker 1: like to start off in the grass of a soccer
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  Speaker 1: baseball field, which may or may not be covered in
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  Speaker 1: four ft of snow right now, depending on where you live.
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  Speaker 1: The key is to make it easy at first. However,
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  Speaker 1: you have to do that. Maybe that's in the house.
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  Speaker 1: The dogs should be able to see the antler from
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  Speaker 1: where you start him, and when he brings it back,
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  Speaker 1: it's time to throw a little praise party. You want
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  Speaker 1: the dog to think that bringing you an antler is
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  Speaker 1: the next best thing to die in and go into
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  Speaker 1: doggie heaven. You also want to add a command into
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  Speaker 1: the mix so the dog knows when it's time to
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  Speaker 1: start looking for antlers or I don't know, to find
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  Speaker 1: the bone, which is the command I use. I don't
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  Speaker 1: want anything that will conflict with my bird hunting commands,
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  Speaker 1: so this can be totally catered to your situation. If
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  Speaker 1: you use find the bird as a as a way
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  Speaker 1: to get your dog to get into the upland hunting mode,
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  Speaker 1: then find the bone might be too close. Whatever you choose,
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  Speaker 1: use it as a prompt in your early training drills
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  Speaker 1: where you ensure easy success, and this is important in
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  Speaker 1: a staple of all good dog training, but don't overdrive
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  Speaker 1: your headlights. We often think, well, if the dog can
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  Speaker 1: find an antler in the living room or the backyard
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  Speaker 1: really easily, I need to make it difficult and really
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  Speaker 1: teach them how to hunt. But that's a bad idea.
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  Speaker 1: Dogs are great at learning through repetition and baby steps,
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  Speaker 1: which is how you should approach shed dog training. For example,
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  Speaker 1: if your dog absolutely makes the connection between your shed
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  Speaker 1: hunting command and running out to pick an antler up
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  Speaker 1: out of the yard, it's probably time to move into
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  Speaker 1: a little thicker habitat. Instead of old grass, move to
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: grass that is maybe six inches tall. Your goal is
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  Speaker 1: to ramp up the difficulty ever so slightly. When you
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  Speaker 1: know your dog has whatever level you're at just totally nailed,
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  Speaker 1: then you know it's time to move up into a
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  Speaker 1: situation where your dog just has to work a tiny
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  Speaker 1: bit harder for success, but there will always be success there.
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  Speaker 1: Remember that eventually you can descent antlers and start planting
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  Speaker 1: them in more real world situations, like in a picked
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  Speaker 1: bean field or under a pine tree at a nearby park.
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  Speaker 1: What you want the dog to do is think this
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  Speaker 1: is a game where they get excited when you give
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  Speaker 1: them their shed hunting command. You want them to start
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  Speaker 1: actively searching and showing you through their body language that
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: they are into it. This means you're closer to having
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  Speaker 1: a shed dog and can probably head out and start
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  Speaker 1: actually shed hunting. But when you do, make sure you
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  Speaker 1: bring some antlers with you. You don't want your dog
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  Speaker 1: to be unsuccessful at any time, aim when you could
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  Speaker 1: change that outcome by simply tossing a fuel antlers throughout
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  Speaker 1: the day while your dog is looking the other way
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: and side note this is a great move for little
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  Speaker 1: kids too. Eventually, with enough training, your dog will start
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  Speaker 1: to contribute to the yearly take. But this is a
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  Speaker 1: moment where I need to be real honest. I am
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  Speaker 1: friends with some of the best shed dog trainers in
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  Speaker 1: the world, arguably probably the best, and they are adamant
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  Speaker 1: that the amount of antler is a good dog will
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  Speaker 1: contribute pales in comparison to a human shed hunter. Dogs
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  Speaker 1: do cover a lot of ground and they do find
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  Speaker 1: some sheds, but you're not at a net loss at
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: any time with a good shed dog. They aren't antler
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  Speaker 1: vacuums crossing the countryside and finding tons of sheds that
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: you never find your on your own. However, that's just
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  Speaker 1: not how it works. Shed dogs and their antler production
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  Speaker 1: are also directly commensurate to the amount of sheds you'd
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: likely find on a given year. So let's say you
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: shed hunt kind of hard and your average six antlers
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  Speaker 1: per season. This is pretty common in the world of
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: pressure deer. In that case, a good shed dog might
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  Speaker 1: find one or two antlers that you just wouldn't maybe three.
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  Speaker 1: I know that's not great, but it's not nothing either.
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  Speaker 1: And the real best part of this, all the parts
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: that I alluded to way back in the intro, is
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: that having a shed dog gets you out there more.
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  Speaker 1: Training a dog to find antlers doesn't take away from
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: their bird hunting abilities in any way. It just adds
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: to their repertoire. And what that means is that while
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: pheasant or grouse season might be over, you can still
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: keep hunting quote unquote with your dog for a few
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: more months. That's good for you. It's good for your dog,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: but it's good for you specifically as a deer hunter,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: really good. I know for a fact that training my
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: bird dogs to hunt antlers has gotten me out more
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: throughout the winter months when there isn't a whole hell
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: of a lot to do besides ice fish or binge
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: netflix or whatever. There is a whole world of white
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: tails out there, and some of them are losing their
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: head gear right now. Some of them live in parks,
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  Speaker 1: some of them live on private land, and some of
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: them live on public land. Whatever the case may be
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: near you and whatever land you have access to, spending
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: time in the woods in the winter will make you
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: a better hunter. If that takes a laborate or retriever
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: with some shed antler training under his belt, so be it.
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  Speaker 1: I know personally that I probably shed hunt I don't
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  Speaker 1: know twice as much as I would without a dog,
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  Speaker 1: because I like, I don't know spending time in the
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  Speaker 1: woods with my dogs. It's that's simple. They want to
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: go always, which makes me want to go. Dogs are
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: kind of like making a Jim buddy to lift with
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: who is always enthusiastic about picking up heavy stuff and
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: putting it down. You might not really need the motivation,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: or you might, but either way, it's nice when it
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: swoops into your life. With shed dogs, the desire to
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: out there more is real. That means you'll cover more
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: miles in search of antlers, but it might also take
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: you to new spots. It might take you through the
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: public land twenty minutes from your house that you don't
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: really hunt because every morning of the season, as you
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: drive past it to go to work, you see a
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: couple of trucks parked in the parking lot. The dog
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: doesn't know that, and the dog doesn't care. It just
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: wants to be out in the woods with you. That
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: motivation can get you to understand a spot you've written off,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: and it can get you into areas of a spot
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: like that to get your white tail gears turning. Following
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: a dog for miles throughout the winter will take you
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: to places you normally wouldn't go to shed hunt or
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: winter scout, and that means you're seeing in person spots
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: that you wouldn't have otherwise. Now I don't know about you,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: but there have been a lot of times in my
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: life where I found just one fence crossing or one
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: big corner post rub or something out in the deer
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  Speaker 1: woods that changed my whole thinking on a stage eat
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: or a specific parcel. And that's not nothing. My friends,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: and however, you have to go about putting yourself in
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: a position to make those discoveries. So be it. Maybe
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: you're already super motivated and you winter scout fifty days
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: a year, but maybe not. Maybe you don't winter scout much,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: kind of like shed hunting, and are mostly afflicted by
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: cabin fever. And maybe I don't know. You've got a
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: hunting dog or a sporting dog, or a working dog
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: sitting there in your house, or just some random good
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: dog that likes to retrieve sticks. If so, the ingredients
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: are all there for you to change the course of
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: your off season, which can also change the course of
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: your hunting season. And if it doesn't, well, you spend
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: some time with your dog training, which is good, and
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: then you spent some time in the woods with your
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: four legged best friend, which is good too. Maybe you
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: find an extra antler, few antlers, maybe not. Maybe you
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: just find a bang in public land hotspot that you've
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: always overlooked or maybe not, but it's worth trying if
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: you have the dog and the means to do so
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: that's it for this week, my friends. My name is
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Tony Peterson and this has been the Wire to Hunt
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Foundations podcast. Next week, I'm kicking off a couple episodes
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: on winter scouting, so be sure to tune in. And
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: if you're not getting enough whitetail content in your daily diet,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: make sure to check out our wire to Hunt YouTube
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: channel or visit the meat Eator dot com slash wired.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I promise you those two resources will keep you busy
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: consuming tons of white tailed goodness. And as always, thank
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: you so much for listening and for your support. We
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: really appreciate it.