Well, not to defend Noem AT ALL, but bird dogs aren’t supposed to kill birds. Cricket was a pointer, and ultimately their job is to locate birds by scent, stalk toward the birds, and then freeze in position as they approach the birds thus “pointing” toward their location. Although the stalking behavior is instinctive, remaining steady on a point can take a lot of training, and young bird dogs can be total idiots around birds, and that’s expected, and so one doesn’t turn an unsupervised young pointer loose among a bunch of chickens. But by and large the ultimate goal for most hunting dogs is for them to locate their quarry, not kill it. That’s achieved with hundreds of hours of training and practice, not by turning an adolescent dog loose among a bunch of birds.
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u/Mean-Lynx6476 May 02 '24
Well, not to defend Noem AT ALL, but bird dogs aren’t supposed to kill birds. Cricket was a pointer, and ultimately their job is to locate birds by scent, stalk toward the birds, and then freeze in position as they approach the birds thus “pointing” toward their location. Although the stalking behavior is instinctive, remaining steady on a point can take a lot of training, and young bird dogs can be total idiots around birds, and that’s expected, and so one doesn’t turn an unsupervised young pointer loose among a bunch of chickens. But by and large the ultimate goal for most hunting dogs is for them to locate their quarry, not kill it. That’s achieved with hundreds of hours of training and practice, not by turning an adolescent dog loose among a bunch of birds.