Cliff,
That is pretty close to what I do, I know some people only use wild birds, and has always made me curious on how they do an intro to birds and guns.
I always start out with the clapping, and then I move it out to the garage, where while the pup is playing with his toys, I bang around with a hammer, while watching the pups reaction. Once pup is comfortable with that, we go to my friends farm, where I will through some quail for the pup. I let him chase them all he wants, once the light comes on that if he wants another bird, he has to come back to me. After about the third bird I will start firing the training pistol when he gets about 25 yards out, if no reaction I let go more birds for him. That will be all the training for that day. Next day I will have some quail in the field under some tip cages, I flag where the birds are at so I can kind of direct the pup towards them. Once he finds them and while he is on point, I tip the cage over and let the quail go, when the pup chases, I wait till he is out aways and then fire the pistol. I usually do between 6 and 8 quail. If the pup shows no sign of the noise, the next trip out I bring the 20 gauge and start the whole process over. I start just planting the birds without the cage once he is comfortable with the gun. My pup is usually ready to hunt at about 12 weeks old, now he will be far far from finished, but now he will be ready to find and train on wild birds.
One more thing on this, I believe everyone should gun train there dogs, whether you hunt with them or not. I see and hear of so many traumatized dogs over the 4th of July, while my dogs have always sat by my side watching fireworks, and my sisters are shaking under the bed.
Great topic, I would like to hear more from the people who only use wild birds, I have always liked the controlled environment for intros.
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