# Teach dog to stay in GHG dog force ground blind?



## wood duck2 (Jan 31, 2008)

I just purchased the GHG ground force dog blind and was looking for a few tips to get my dog used to staying in the blind. I have had him crawl straight through it several times but not to stay put once in there. Also i would like to be able to have him run to the blind on command and stay put. I have a black lab with basic training,sit, stay, lay down, and heal. He has retreived several ducks and geese from pit blind on a lake however he was sitting right next to me, now just trying to work him in a field for snow geese. Any pointers? Thanks


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## FoldEmXtreme (Jan 3, 2010)

Since we are in the off season bring the blind inside and put it next to your lazy boy or couch. Teach the dog to "kennel" into the blind and reinforce the dog staying in the blind until you call it by name to release. After a few days the dog will learn to love the blind just as they do a crate or dog bed etc. Then move the blind to the outdoors and work on the same basics. Next extend the blind to a few yards away and teach the dog with the "kennel" or whatever command you want to use means for the dog to go in the blind, lay down and stay until released. Extend the distance until you are 50-100 yards away from the blind and work with the dog until they understand even if you sit them remote they need to run to the blind when commanded. The dog will learn this through attrition, give the dog a lot of praise and don't discipline for mistakes, make it very fun for the dog. I like to do fun retrieves in between to keep the dogs attention and make it fun.

Once you get this down then you will have to rework on steadyness from the blind.


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## AdamFisk (Jan 30, 2005)

I know all dogs are different and I'm not the most experienced on this issue, but here is what I did. It was quite easy to get my dog to "kennel" up. I started working on him when he was a pup, with the blind in the house. I put the blind up against a wall so he couldn't run through it, like you stated. I'd throw a treat in there and give the kennel command. He caught on pretty quick. Of course by this time he had some OB training.

My dog is about 3.5 yrs old or so. Up until last season he would break as soon as we popped up from our blinds to shoot. I never really had a issue with this (my stupidity) until a few incidents where he was on the landed birds before we could get shots off. When one of my buddies said they almost shot my dog it was time to fix it. I bought a stake from a guy in Fargo and went to work (http://www.stakeoutinc.com/). After 1 hunt, while everything was right there, I had a buddy stand behind me and the dog, in our blinds, and throw a bird and shoot. I would pop up like I was going to shoot with my hand on the shock collar and zap him when he broke. If he didn't stop, he hit the end of that chain pretty hard and got the idea pretty quick. The next few times out I put the gun down and worked with him. It probably took 6-8 hunts before I was comfortable in not having him staked down. I still have a little work to do as he'll break very rarely now, but I can at least stop him with a shock collar and get him back into the blind. When he does that, he has to sit back and watch another dog or my self retrieve the birds; no birds for him. He gets the idea pretty quick.


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## Gone Fishin (Dec 11, 2008)

Adam

I had the same thing happen to me this year, I will be adressing the issue in the offseason.

My experience tells me the best training would be to put down the gun and hunt with a e-collar and camara.

Thanks


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## AdamFisk (Jan 30, 2005)

I am now a firm believer in training your dog to stay in the blind until released. It was stupid of me to wait this long. I still hunt with a buddy who's dog breaks like mine used to, when we pop out to shoot, and he won't put the gun down to fix the problem. It's not that hard to fix, you just have to give up some shooting to fix it. That's a lot better than shooting your dog IMO.

Good luck!!!


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## Gone Fishin (Dec 11, 2008)

I agree


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