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| Early Training With both Irish Terriers (ITs) and Wirehaired Pointing Griffons (WPGs) training begins while the puppy is with the bitch. The mother and siblings teach a puppy about boundries (a bitch will scold a puppy for being too forward or for trying to eat her food), hunting (puppies stalk and pounce each other in play), fighting (also establishing dominance- also happens during play), and other social behaviors. These are valuable lessons that are more difficult for a human to teach without the help of other dogs. This if Fiona, our resident Nanny. Fiona is a ten year old Irish Terrier with excellent mothering instincts. She adopts all puppies of all breeds. She is gentle but firm, and extremely protective. After weaning a litter of puppies from the dam, Fiona takes over. Fiona will tolerate annoying and bold puppies for a while, but eventually scolds them gently with a growl and possibly a nose grab. The puppy will whimper for a moment then grovel at Fiona's head until Fiona forgives by cleaning the puppy's face.  
Adolescence Puppies learn from their peers just as we do. They learn to respect dominant peers and to dominate less assertive peers. Much of this learning takes place during play.  It is of great importance to socialize puppies at all ages with children as well as adults. Children are typically less predictble, lower to the ground (and the puppy's level), and louder than adults. Most puppies, after the initial introduction, are all too happy to follow and play with children. They quickly learn that children often have interesting toys and tasty treats that are easily stolen out of hand. Puppies with less human contact often take longer to adjust to their new homes and can take longer to learn to trust and respect their new families and new situations. 
Young Gundogs As all puppies ought to have adequate contact with humans, young gundogs ought to have a sound and positive introduction to adventure, water and birds. We begin taking gundog puppies on "adventure walks" through pastures at around six weeks of age. We start the walks at the barn, allowing them to take in all of the different smells of chickens, livestock, pigeons, quail, ducks, pheasants, etc. Once we have passed the barn we enter the horse field where the puppies follow us and are able to run wildly. Once they are a little tired they will stay close to us as we go about fixing fence or cleaning a water tub. The puppies explore the area, sticking their noses into gopher holes, pointing wild quail and tweety birds in the blackberry bushes and occasionally chasing a Killdeer. These walks build confidence, promote curiosity and teach young dogs about bird behavior. These two photos show 15 week old puppies pointing Bob White quail. In the first photo Bellibone has caught scent and points naturally. This is not a trained point, but it shows her acknowledgment of game scent (due to earlier exposure to birds). The photo on the right shows George and Archie. Archie has pointed a Bob White hidden in cover. George has noticed Archie's pause and stops to "honor" Archie's point. Again, these are not trained points or honors, they are natural responses to game scent and displays of hunting behaviors learned during play. | |
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