Wildfowling And Rough Shooting Dog

[koda 83]

i use my chesapeake for rough shooting, decoying and fowling. she put 100% into everything, never gets cold and can hunt all day .

ive herd they are very good whats it like with cover etc

[ANTHONYCHEZ 27]

well i can only go by the one i have and she is great , better than most labs I've seen but I've seen better cockers and springers. a great nose on her too. i might have been lucky or maybe its how I've trained her.she has come off some really good stock tho, the dam is worked on mostly wildfowl and the sire is trialed and worked in America. i think a breeder works them on pheasant near Sheffield

[dee mac 579]

anthonychez did you ever see the retrieve the cheasapeak (think thats how its spelled)makes on a video clip on the basc website (think its the basc website) big long swim out onto a mud bank on the foreshore do your heart good for the serious wildfowler i think they are the bench mark seen one in the flesh few years back and what a piece of a dog it was built like an outhouse with a thick dense coat that looked like it had come of a gizzly bear .

[fat man 4,741]

Friend of mine got a dog recently from up around lough neagh country.He is a huge animal,sort of a rusty red in colour and very good in water but after that he aint anything special.Seen another once when i went up around enniskillin for geese,the gilly on the day had one with him and it made a couple of good retrieves but nothing more than a reasonable working lab would do,jmo.

[ANTHONYCHEZ 27]

yeah ive seen that retrieve on the dee, it did an excellent job, i know of a lab that could do that tho too, but the Chesapeake is bred for that job . the dogs can be huge but i prefer the size of the bitches about the size of a well built dog lab. these dogs are breed for fowling really but with the right training can be as good as a lab rough shooting. your always going to get better dogs of different breeds what ever you get. the Chesapeake has a lot of bad press about them being aggressive I've not had much of a problem with it as she was well socialised as a pup and lives with 3 other dogs. i know of nasty labs , springers and even little cockers, what i would say is tho she wont be bullied, she will play with dogs and bitches all day given the chance. I got my dog to aid me with all the shooting i do but wanted a breed that when i go shooting up Scotland wont get too cold sat in a wet ditch in the middle of winter , or sat in flood water for hours on end.

[spec 45]

thing is you've got to look at the thing everyday, if you like labs and you get a springer you may find you spend all your time thinking 'if he was a lab he'd do this or this'. I have an old springer who's spent most of his life retrieving ducks, he's a very big, old-fashioned type, you don't see him shivering, but a type like that can be hard to get these days.

[dav3p 0]

would love a chessie but how hard is it to get hold of a true worker

[EnglishBulldog 14]

Hi lads thanks for the advice I have made my decision and due to I will be mainly do rough shooting I'm going to get a cocker spaniel as when wildfowling it will mainly consist of retreving duck at short distances it should do the job fine.

[allydog 4]

My choice is a cocker mate, I use mine for rough shooting, ducks, pigeons, picking up , , beating etc cracking wee dog with a bit of character.

[Lab 10,979]

 

Well bred and well trained springer??? What are they? Buy a real dog. One that wont shiver to death after the first water retrieve you give it in the month of October. One that isnt as mad as a hatter in a hedge running on 50 yards infront of you when it gets wind of a woodcock. As far as i'm concerned any rough shooting dog that you ever have to blow a whistle at isn't worth the cartridge it would take to shoot it! Birds have ears too! Buy a Lab and be done with it!!!

 

If that's the case how can my springers go swimming in the north sea in the depths of winter then come and sit by me while i sit and drink me flask for 15/20 minutes and sit perfectly to heal, never had a shiver from either of them

 

Get a springer - proper dogs

 

f**k off you had to go and help one of them the other day cause the tide caught you out, pat-licker... ..........Get a Lab... ​

[bigdaz 688]

You can have what I would call an all round gundog, dogs that do all the OP requires and more, but some breeds will be better at some tasks than others as that is their main job. It's a bit like the all round lurcher scenario. Pick a breed that excels and is purpose bred for the job it's most likely to be doing, chances are it'll do everything else as well just not as well as dogs bred for those tasks.

I try and keep it simple regarding dogs, there's a reason most shoots you turn up to that the majority of dogs are labs and springers and has been like that for years.

[mark williams 7,552]

My own choice would be the German Short Haired Pointer for all types of shooting,with the English Springer my 2nd choice (just).

 

atb

[Dave C 63]

If you like Labs just get a Lab mate.

If you get one from the right lines they hunt very keenly and have excellent staminar.

 

On a shoot day mine beats all day then picks the Ducks on the Flight afterwards, she is also spot on rough shooting

[Blakloks 5]

The Chesapeakes are fiercely protective of their retrieve Ive saw them go mental at other dogs down the shore don't know how that would work on a days pheasant shooting. My wee spaniel has sat down the shore with me at -15 wi a frozen slever hanging from his chops and saw it thru and brought back Canada geese nearly as heavy as him it's great fun watching a spaniel rattle through the gears I think they've got a couple extra on other working dogs!

[r judd 13]

best advice from big daz keep simple if fowling is involved with your rough shooting a labs the dog for you