Hunting Squirrels with Gundogs

[Dave C]

Dose anyone use there Gundogs to hunt squirrels, either hunting up and treeing or just retrieving.

 

Dave.

[casts_by_fly]

Roxy (5 yr old lab) is a squirrel dog. Back in the US we had a lot of opportunities to shoot squirrels. There was some public land about 20 minutes from home with a bunch of them. There weren't many birds close. So well over half of our time in the woods was spent hunting squirrels. She has been trained to chase on sight and get them into a tree as fast as possible. Usually they will tree about 30' high and bark at her while she's barking at them. That's just enough time for me to come with the 22 and shoot them. She then hapily grabs them when they hit the ground. Nice arrangement that gives some more and varied dog work given the opportunities we had available.

 

Of course the complication is that when we're in a park and she sees a squirrel she is off to the races. If she is in an open field, she can catch them if she starts close enough.

 

Thanks,

Rick

[steve0146]

Hi,

 

My lurcher catchs a fair few. You have to be really carefull sending a dog to retrieve one. They bite like hell. When he was a pup he brought one back to me alive and carrying it by the tail. It swung round a bit him through the front leg right in the muscle. It needed to be stapled and a course of antibiotics. They dont come back alive anymore!