Most bird dogs will naturally hunt using the wind (or Breeze) to there advantage. You can help your dog by setting up your hunting strategy to utilize the wind also. Bird dogs learn to hunt for scent cones or bird scent. When your dog is running back and forth sniffing he is trying to locate birds by scent. Once he hits that scent and it’ s strong enough he will freeze up like a statue and point his nose in the direction of the scent. By working your dog into the wind this will allow him to smell the birds before he runs past them. This also allows the dog to scent the bird before the bird is crowded or spooked and flies away. This may all seem simple and your probably laughing in your head, but when it comes to training this is critical. What you want to do is bring your dog on the down wind side of the bird you are working and set him up for success. Try to bring the dog across the wind so when he hits the scent of the bird it triggers the natural reaction to point and the dog freezes. When you come cross wind the initial scent will be a strong part of the scent cone and the dog will point. This will help him from not being confused when to point. This will set your dog up to succeed in training. When hunting the wind can make or break you. If you always have the wind to your back your going to walk past a lot of birds and your dog will tend to range further away. If you can keep the wind in your face you will greatly increase your chances to find birds and keep your dog naturally hunting closer to you.
Sasha Hunting Into The Wind
Some interesting information about the dogs nose comes from Bill Tarrant Quote ” So let’s examine the dogs nose. It is a miraculous device composed of chambers and receptors and all sorts of moisteners and backup cells and bran connectors that well simple lump in into the on term “smell cells.” I’m no expert on the matter, but it is said man has about five million of thees smell cells. Dogs on the on the other hand, have from 125 to 1,000 million of them.
In short dogs rely on smell for lots of things even to tell who you are. This is why we use them to hunt they can find lots more birds than we can.
