Crate training a puppy serves two purposes; One is potty training and the other is to get them accustomed to having a safe place for alone time.

When you start crate training a puppy, first you put your puppy in the crate and leave him there for an hour. As soon as you let him out of the crate, immediately take him outside. Once you and your puppy are outside, use words like “go potty” and “get busy”. Always use the same phrase so that your puppy learns to associate it with doing his business. When he starts “going”, say “good potty”, “good potty”. You will learn that reinforcing commands using praise, and the key words, will teach your puppy to know the words and what they mean. After he does his business, bring him inside and play with him. Make sure you set a time limit of about an hour. Let him drink water, but keep an eye on him. Let him be a puppy and have fun with it. They grow up so fast that you need to enjoy the puppy stage while you can. After an hour of play, take him back outside and repeat the potty procedure. Once he does his business, and he will, take him back inside and put him in his crate. Repeat this process every couple of hours. It gives you the opportunity to play with your puppy, gives you time away from him to get things done and all the while it’s your first training exercise. You will be surprised how fast your new puppy can adapt to this routine and how it helps eliminate accidents inside.

When Beretta and Gunner were puppies, we lived in an 800 square foot apartment. so crate training was imperative. That was never the plan and it proved to be a bad idea. Two puppies in a small apartment can be a hassle. First off, we didn’t have a yard so we had to keep them in their crates while we were potty training them. Most experts say a dog can hold its bladder about one hour for every month they are old, up to about 6 months. After that they can hold it for a pretty long time. That being said, if my wife and I were to leave, what were we supposed to do with the puppies? So we left them in their crates while we were at work, and I would come home every couple of hours to let them go out.

They got the potty training down fairly quickly, so we set up a 6-panel baby playpen in the kitchen for them to stay in while we were gone. I would still come home ever couple hours to take them out. When we were home, we continued the same routine only now they were in the playpen instead of in their crates. Eventually, we were able to extend the time they spent out and let them run around and have fun. No matter what though, we would still have to watch them carefully. Most puppies will let you know if they have to go out. Soon enough they would start going to the door, but before that we would just watch for “the circle”. Anyone who has had a dog before knows about the circle. For some reason a dog can’t just pee without circling around and finding the perfect spot to evacuate their bowels. Watch for the circle and you’re golden.

Until your pup is 6 months old, take his water away after 7pm. We always put them in their crates at night and it didn’t take long before the crate training began to work and they would sleep through the night without having to go out. Occasionally we would hear a single bark in the middle of the night and that meant one of them needed to go out. By making him go out in the middle of the night, you are teaching him it’s okay to wake you up. This is not acceptable. But not to worry, it doesn’t take long for them to get use to staying in their crate until the morning. The key to crate training really is being consistent. Once your puppy is crate trained, life becomes much easier. Both for you and your new pup.

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We’re in South Dakota right now helping our outfitter here plant some pheasant habitat. We are adding some shelter belts around his fields to improve his already phenomenal pheasant habitat.

We have 1,700 trees from the Conservation Restoration Program (CRP) to re-plant. There are approximately 30,000 trees on his property in all, but we are re-planting the ones that have died. The species of trees recommended for pheasant habitat include: chokecherry; nanking cherry; cherry; golden current; dogwood; plum; apricot; apple; green ash; Black Hills spruce; Eastern red cedar; Rocky Mtn. Juniper; Ponderosa pine; buffalo berry; maple; black walnut; willow; hensen hedgehair and a few more that I can’t remember the name of. It is hard work, but it will be rewarding to come back in a few years to see all of this great habitat.

This outfitter is also going to play with some johnny houses and covey base camps to try to re-establish Hungarian Partridge on his property. We are going to help with that process as well. The hunting here is already incredible and I can’t even imagine what it will be like when all of these trees and bushes mature. It will be nice when we don’t have to lean so heavily on the corn to hunt. And hopefully he is able to have some success with his Hungarian Partridge project.

Today there was a prairie fire… two of them actually. One was huge and we went to help the fire dept. fight it. Someone was doing a controlled burn and the wind came up and it got away from them. Crazy stuff.

If you are interested in coming to South Dakota for the pheasant hunt of a lifetime, get ahold of us. The Outdoors International Team comes to South Dakota every year and it just keeps getting better and better.

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The Wolfe group had a ton of fun on their pheasant hunt!

This South Dakota pheasant hunt was a success

We hunted birds for three days and since most of the corn was already cut, there were pheasants everywhere! It was the perfect South Dakota pheasant hunt. We had some corn strips near the farmhouse that had hundreds of birds in them. With ten people hunting, our limit was thirty birds a day, and everybody shot well so it was a blast! Another highlight of the trip was the food. One night, my dad made Dutch Oven pheasant and crab dinner for us… That was some good stuff.

There is something to be learned from this trip. Everybody wants to hunt the opening day of pheasant season, but often the corn is still up and the birds are hard to get to. By the third week, corn is usually coming down, weather is still nice and the birds are MUCH easier to hunt. It is easier to find an open date further into the season as well.

These guys already booked the same week for next year. We’re filling up fast, so if you want to come, give us a call or send us an email.

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The endurance and performance benefits of feeding high-protein, high-fat diets to your bird dog is undeniable. These diets help to keep your bird dogs hunting hard. Now research originally posted at the Living With Bird Dogs blog suggests that certain diets can also improve a dogs sense of smell.

Researchers at Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine fed three different diets to a group of 17 scent detection dogs over an 18-month period: a high-end performance food, a regular adult dog food, and a regular food diluted with corn oil. The findings show that bird dogs perform best during exercise and detection tests on a diet low in protein and high in fat. This diet helps dogs to improve detection by decreasing the time it takes to lower a dog’s body temperature after exercise.

If you’re a dog, digesting protein raises body temperature, so the longer your body temperature is up, the longer you keep panting, and the harder it is to smell well.”
~Joseph Wakshlag, Associate Professor of Clinical Nutrition

Bird dogs that were fed the corn oil diet showed the most improvement. All three diets were structured to have the same 57% of energy from fat, but the corn oil diet had far less protein: 185 versus 275.

Corn oil has lots of polyunsaturated fats, similar to what you’d find in a lot of nuts and common grocery store seed oils. Past data from elsewhere suggest that these polyunsaturated fats might enhance the sense of smell, and it looks like that may be true for detection dogs. It could be that fat somehow improves nose-signaling structures or reduces body temperature or both. But lowering protein also played a part in improving olfaction.”
~Joseph Wakshlag, Associate Professor of Clinical Nutrition

So where do bird dogs stand in all of this? We’re not sure, but this study will add one more facet to the never-ending debate over what, how, how much and when to feed your dogs.

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The chukar partridge has been introduced successfully into North America, the Hawaiian Islands and New Zealand.

The first introduction made into North America was in 1893 when W. O. Blaisdell of Illinois brought in five pairs of chukars from Karachi, India. Following the initial introduction a majority of the states and Canadian Provinces have made attempts to establish this game bird. As a result of the Foreign Game Introductions Project of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife one other subspecies, the Turkish chukar, was introduced into several Western States commencing in 1951.

In North America, chukar partridges have been released by game departments, sportsmen’s clubs or interested individuals in 42 states and 6 Canadian Provinces. Chukars have become established as one of the most successful upland game birds in North America and are being hunted in 10 states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming) and in one Canadian Province (British Columbia). There is a small area inhabited by chukars, as a result of nearby California releases, in Baja California, Mexico. The status is still uncertain in Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota and Texas and it appears possible that through the application of a selective sustained release program based on current knowledge of environmental requirements, this bird can attain establishment in portions of South Dakota and in Southwestern Texas where only limited releases have been made. The chukar partridge presently occupies approximately 100,000 square miles of habitat in North America and Hawaii.

Topography
In North America the major characteristics of the habitat occupied by the chukar are much the same throughout the extent of the birds’ range from British Columbia to Baja California and California to Wyoming, and to all outward appearances duplicates the gross topographical and vegetational features found in their native habitat. The major difference in habitats in North America appears to be the change from a primary sagebrush-grass vegetation, which is found throughout the majority of the range, to the more arid saltbush-grass type at the southern extension of its habitat in California and Mexico.

As described by Billings (1951) “The chief physiographic characteristic of the Great Basin is its basinand-range topography. It is not just a single large basin but more than a hundred relatively small basinsrated from each other by fault-block mountain ranges.” The mountains and valleys trend in a north-south direction and the valleys lie at about 4,000 to 5,000 feet with the crests of the mountains ranging from 5,000 to over 14,000 feet. The elevations diminish as you go south. The mountains are broken up by steep rugged canyons with talus slopes and rocky outcrops being characteristic. Water is usually found in the form of small, widely scattered springs that are supplemented by occasional streams that may be of an intermittent nature, and a few rivers. The chukar partridge has found its niche in this rugged Great Basin terrain, living from the valley floor below sea level in Death Valley (Harper, 1958) to as high as 12,000 feet in the White Mountains of California and Nevada. In Nevada they generally occupy the elevational range between 4,000 and 9,000 feet.

Climate
Most of the Great Basin is arid or semi-arid with the cooler, moister climate being found from Central Nevada northward and the hot desert climate in Southern Nevada, California and Baja California. In Nevada’s chukar habitat the extreme in precipitation will vary from an average of 3.50 inches per year at Mina to an average of 12 inches per year at Austin.

The temperature is characterized by short, hot summers and long, moderately cold winters. Daily temperature extremes are typical and during the summer months it is not unusual for there to be a 40° F or even 50° F differential in temperature within 24 hours.

Seasonal and Altitudinal Movements
During the spring, summer and early fall, water appears to be the determining factor in chukar distribution and movements. Birds have been seen from the valley floor (4,000 ft.) to high mountain basins (between 10,000 and 11,000 ft.) in areas where water is available. After the first fall rains, when grasses begin germinating and succulent food is present, the birds, in coveys, move freely throughout their range and inhabit waterless sites that were previously unoccupied.

Heavy snow will cause the chukars to move to lower elevations where feed is available and they return to higher elevations as the snow recedes. In March, when the birds pair, there is a general movement both altitudinally and latitudinally throughout their range. Phelps (1955) found that the chukar normally travels over a mile radius in the course of feeding, watering and roosting during a day.

Water
In May, as the weather begins to warm up, chukars have been observed at water in the early morning and evening hours. Following the hatch, and as the weather becomes progressively warmer, the birds are noticed more frequently at water. During the hot summer months it is often possible to flush a covey of birds, usually one or more family groups, near water at any time of day. Despite the tendency of the birds to be near water during most of the day in hot weather, occasional broods of chicks and accompanying adults have been found during the early morning hours on hillsides over a mile from the closest known surface water. As mentioned previously, the summer distribution of the birds seems to depend a great deal upon the distribution and availability of water present in their habitat. Chukars take advantage of all water, from rivers to small creeks and springs to nearly stagnant seeps that hardly more than moisten the ground.

Food
Feeding activity seems to be greatest during midmorning and through the afternoon. The birds move continuously while feeding and range widely. In the hot summer months they are often found feeding close to water. During the nesting period their movements are cautious, and when it is necessary for them to cross an exposed patch of land they invariably skulk across, lowering their heads and running. They frequently “freeze” in position with their heads erect in order to survey the surroundings. In the summer and fall, large numbers of birds are often found feeding together on favorite slopes or benches. Small patches of cultivation in canyon or valley areas are often heavily utilized.

The chukars’ utilization of cheatgrass in the form of seeds and/or leaves during every month of the year indicates the importance of this particular species. The birds’ heavy dependence upon green grass leaves during November through March (which varied from 73% to 99% of the total crop contents in my 1952 study) again illustrates the impact the grass family has on the chukars’ diet.

In evaluating all of the food studies that have been conducted in the areas where chukars are successfully established in North America it is obvious that exotic plants such as cheatgrass, red-stem filaree and Russian thistle, in seed and in leafage form, play an important part in the food requirements of the chukar partridge. The widespread and year-around use of cheatgrass by the chukar in North America unquestionably makes this plant the priority food species.

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If you’re an upland bird hunter, be sure to try this wonderful chukar or pheasant casserole. It is sure to be a hit around any dinner table.

Take 3 or 4 whole chukar and fillet the breast meat off the bird. Or use the meat from 2 pheasants. I like to soak my meat overnight in salt water in the refrigerator to remove any blood and tenderize the meat a bit.

Cut up the mat into nickel or quarter sized chunks.

Mix flour and seasonings (Lawrys) and shake and bake the chunks of meat for about 5 minutes.

Heat some olive oil or bacon grease and brown the chunks of meat.

Mix in a casserole bowl 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup, 3 cans water, 1 cup rice. Now add the cooked meat into the bowl and cook for 1.25 hours on 375 in the oven. I like to stir my casserole at about the 45 minute mark to ensure the rice is good, and this will thicken the casserole.

An option is to cover with cheddar cheese 5 minutes prior to taking out.

Take out of the oven, let sit for 10 to 15 minutes and serve.

If you like spicy, you can add some cut jalapenos into the meat when you are browning it, and then they will add some zip to the casserole.

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Put breasts in a Crock Pot and cover with Apple Cider (don’t use apple juice as it doesn’t have the same effect).

Set Crock Pot on low for 8 hours.

Remove breasts and pull meat apart with two forks as you would if making pork bbq.

Place meat in a bowl and cover with generous amount of your favorite bbq sauce and any other spices you like. Mix it in well. Refrigerate.

When I cook goose, I usually cook 3 to 4 complete birds or 6 to 8 individual breast chunks, and serve it to a group or eat it for a few days.

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So you’ve been waterfowl hunting and want to cook your ducks. Here is a great duck breast recipe that is super easy and doesn’t take many ingredients.

We are using duck breast meat only and it has been filleted off of the duck. Marinade the duck breasts in Olive oil and Montreal Steak Seasoning (don’t substitute seasoning) for 1 to 8 hours.

Ingredients:

• Duck breasts
• Lightly cooked thin bacon or prosciutto
• Fontina or grilling cheese
• Sage leaf or seasoning
• Toothpicks (round)

First step is to cut the duck breast lengthwise.
The cut will not go clear through the meat, but you are just trying to open up the fillet. I cut until I am 1/8 inch from going completely through. it is important that the skin side of the duck is down or on the bottom and does not get cut through. The fillet will not have skin on it, but you can tell the skin side by how smooth the meat is.

Cook the bacon so it is not crispy.
It needs to be cooked, but still soft so you can wrap the cheese.

Now once you have cut the breast, place a sage leave or some ground sage in the cut, put a piece of fontina cheese 1/4 x 1/4 x 3 inches long, wrapped in the bacon into the slit. You wrap the cheese with the bacon so the cheese will not melt out. Now you stitch up the cut with 3 toothpicks so the bacon cheese wrap stays inside. Now you’re ready to cook.

Get the barbeque to medium-high.
You will cook the duck for 4 minutes with the cut side down. Then you will turn the duck breast over and finish cooking for 6-8 minutes. Do not turn over again, or all of the cheese will run out.

For the most tender and best flavor, the duck should be served medium rare. If you over cook duck, it will get tough and lose the steak flavor.

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Several hunting areas with various accommodations, but when it comes to hunting dove and pigeon in Argentina, nothing comes close to what northern Argentina has to offer.

Experience the best dove hunting on the planet with this outfitter in their concession near Santiago Del Estero. Get more information

The Argentina Outfitter maintains a reputation for having the best wingshooting in South America. This 5 day Dove/Pigeon Hunt Package is affordable and includes everything you need to have an unforgettable adventure!

Thank you very much for a wonderful hunt in Santiago del Estero. The perdiz, the dogs, the dusty dove shooting, the pigeon et all where a lifetime experience that I will never forget.
~Rick Dotson

Talk to a Consultant about Argentina Dove and Pigeon Hunting »

Dove and Pigeon Hunting Season
The best time to hunt doves in Argentina is between early June and March. When the weather gets colder, the doves tend to fly higher and activity is a bit slower.

Dove Hunting Method
Hunting for doves in Argentina is done by setting up in roosting areas and shooting at the wave after wave of doves flying just above the treeline.

Travel to Argentina
You will enter to Argentina through Ezeiza International Airport, from there you will be transferred to Jorge Newberry domestic airport. Although there is not a very long distance between the two airports, to go from one to the other, you need to drive through the City of Buenos Aires. Sometimes this can take a long time, depending on the traffic and the time of the day.

Once you get to the domestic airport, you will take a commercial flight to your final destination, the City of Santiago del Estero where part of Cerro Indio Safaris’ team will be waiting for you and will drive you to the lodge.
If you are bringing your own shotguns with you, an assistant from Cerro Indio Safaris will be waiting for you upon arrival and will help you with their introduction to Argentina.

I had a great trip. My experience in Argentina has been everything I expected and more. The hunting was incredible but the hospitality was out of this world. The day starts with a “good morning” and all day long everybody makes you fell like you have been here forever.
I can’t wait until my next trip to Argentina.
~John Austin

Camps and Accomodations
Your accommodations on this hunt will be a house that was panned and designed to provide guests with an unforgettable stay, bearing in mind all the amenities and the aspects of comfort that you expect from a first class operation.

After an exciting and eventful day of dove shooting, the lobby and the bar seem to be the perfect place for everybody to gather as they are always crowded with hunters, awaiting the five star dinners. The lodge also has five huge rooms with private bathrooms.

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In 1881, when Judge O.N. Denny released some 100 pairs of Chinese ring-necks in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Since then, pheasants have been released by government agencies, clubs and individuals everywhere on the continent that suitable habitat exists. No other game species introduced to North America has been as successful as the pheasant.

Pheasants require weedy fence rows, ditch banks or brushy woods for escape cover. Because of this, pheasants have benefited enormously from the Conservation Reserve Program. CRP involves the planting of vast acres of native grasses by farmers in agricultural areas. CRP benefits many species of wildlife including upland birds, waterfowl and deer. Government agencies continue to struggle over the issue of the CRP program’s future here in the U.S. Efforts of hunter groups like Pheasants Forever have succeeded in ensuring the program’s success.

South Dakota has long been a stronghold for pheasants and the pheasant hunting there is incredible. See our pheasant hunts here.

The post The Origin of the Ring-necked Pheasant in North America appeared first on Wingshooting and Bird Hunting - Outdoors International Hunting Consultants.