Hunting with a dog thats never hunted

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Peter7917

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Im taking my whippet out ferreting on a friends land in a few weeks. She has a strong prey drive and will chase squirrels etc, however she has never caught one(or anything!!!)

Do you think the instinct to kill will just come naturally if she happens to get a rabbit? Or do you think as shes never done it before she wont know what to do properly?

Shes a four year old.
 
Predators, dogs included, are instinctively aware that if they get injured, that will be the beginning of the end. So they tend to experiment rather than just go in all guns blazing and bite hard on first encounter.

If your dog has chased a ball and is reasonably agile, it may catch a rabbit and my guess is that it will hold it without biting down hard so probably not kill it. But that is a guess.

I knew an expert with lurchers who killed rabbits professionally. He'd get a premium for dead but uninjured rabbits (if that makes sense!). He told me he trained his dogs on tame rabbits in his living rom, teaching the dogs to catch and retrieve without hurting the rabbit. I believe him. I saw him do some pretty amazing things with his dogs, all trained with patience and kindness.
 
twiggy2 said:
Is your dog ferret safe?
Click to expand...

Good question, that could be embarassing! I think dogs that go out with ferrets normally spend a lot of time in a calm environment so they think the ferret is a pack member or a friend. Ferrets can come out of a rabbit hole in a state of high excitement.
If your whippet does catch a rabbit I expect it will make a complete horlicks of killing the first one but will get better with practice! It will also be very capable of killing a ferret.
 
Yes I did consider her lack of ferret experience. She's quite a respondent little dog though so I think I will be able to introduce her to the ferret first and perhaps have her on a lead for the first few and see how she reacts before letting her off. Her 'leave it' response is pretty spot on so i hope she will pick it up easy enough. She's never met a ferret before though so we will see!
 
Theres being responsive and then theres letting their prey drive/kill instinct kick in and trying to tell them to leave. Do you have anyone who could help you? Good working dogs are made not born to a certain extent and all the people I know who work them put a lot of effort into training them before, during and after. The usually start them a lot younger and retire them about 5, so shes the older end of the scale
 
Well I'm going with a few family members. They used to hunt with a lurcher some years back.

I should think I'll just keep her on a lead mostly and just release her if a rabbit bolts with the ferret not in sight. Someone else will be ready to catch up the ferret.

Maybe even borrow the ferret to come on a walk with us a few times ..
 
Took mine years ago (whippet x jack russell lurcher) who had never seen a ferret before but had caught rabbits across fields as she was fast.
I placed her by the bolt hole which every warren has and where some of the rabbits will fly out of.
She thoroughly enjoyed herself and marked the live holes very well so we knew where to place the ferret.
She stopped a rabbit that had managed to get through the net and let me take it off her to dispatch it, very proud of her that day she did well.
Oz
 
I wouldn't let her off lead at all unless she is ferret broken. Instead give her a few retrieves of a caught rabbit
 
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