I don't know her at all. That's awesome she hunts her Shiba and she is the exception, like Gen and Dave.
I don't hunt at all. I completely back my bitch line however in terms of working drive and she (Farrah) is what I am selecting for. She's doing great in Flyball lessons so far and holds a strong bite under pressure, great retrieve and doesn't give up. She is prooving to be quite a capable hunter for moles and birds. Her nephew is trying out for the team as well and her other nephew who lived with me for a bit also had incredible drive, and like Patrice's boy, it comes down from their shared sire/grandsire who is consistently producing dogs with outstanding drive, steady nerves and great type.
I'm not sure how to even go about "training" Farrah to hunt since I don't have those connections that Patrice has and I don't want to lose my foundation bitch in the wilderness. I would love to know more about it however and if there are other, safer ways to prove ability.
From the age of 4 weeks, with the breeders assistance, I have been working with her on drive, focus and confidence, and giving her as many opportunities to be successful in prey games (hunting quail wings, loud noise exposure, retrieves and bite work under pressure, etc) as possible. I don't really have to do much work with her aside from providing opportunity, as she is a natural.
This is really cool. It's so interesting to hear about Shibas hunting! Certainly my female has the drive, but unfortunately, she's pretty unsound in a lot of other ways.
There existed two books about hunting copper pheasant using Shibas. Both are out of print now. I managed to buy one and trying to get another on online auction. The author of latter one took the video which shishiinu had post at top.
In Japan Police is quite strict to hunters for keeping licenses and guns. The average age of hunters is getting older and older every year.
I read a really cool Shiba book the other day, produced in Australia of all places and geared toward lineage and tradition of Shiba Inu in that country. Well, being the wild outback, there was quite a nice section on hunting with the breed. The author recomended the breed for copper pheasant, small game birds and rabbits. Training should start at 4 months. The dog should be started on a sock filled with feathers (or fur) of the intended prey, and learn to retrieve with that. Eventually, the dummy is hidden further and further from the dog and the dog learns to seek that scent where ever he goes, and then the dog is put on to real game. Apparently it is bad to cross train the dog to rabbit and fowl, since the tracking is very different, and when the dog goes out to hunt fowl, it will try to also hunt rabbit and mess up the hunt. The author then writes that a correctly trained shiba can be taught to point as reliably as any western dog, but of course the training process is more difficult/longer.
Almost any dog can be taught to stand for game. Most pointer enthusiasts would scoff at the notion that a dog like a Shiba will "point" though. I'm on the fence about it. When you see a real pointer slam onto point and hold it for 5 minutes, it's a pretty impressive sight. It's not quite as impressive when a natural flusher stands for game.
I would hunt for birds with any dog that really enjoyed hunting for birds. I'd rather hunt for birds with a Shiba that loves it than a pointer that doesn't. To me, bird hunting isn't about getting game, it is about watching a dog do its thing. I'd rather hunt over a well trained, enthusiastic dog and find nothing in 8 hours than a dog that quits after 2 hours but finds 10 birds in that time. So, @hondru, the answer is yes. I would definitely hunt birds with a Shiba if it was the right Shiba.
Yes those photos are from japanese hunters and their shibas. As far as I know the only people hunting with their nk's are just dave and myself. I don't think there is anyone hunting with shibas in the us but I can be wrong.
*waves*
Except, um... this one doesn't hunt anymore. Old age and all. Good all-purpose dog. Haven't met another Shiba of the same calibre though.
This thread is old but it seemed the most appropriate place to add this query. Sorry for the long post.
Has anyone seen shibas do a hunt non-solo? I ask because small animals have recently been making their way into our yard, and usually around our dogs' midnight constitutional, I've had the pleasure of frantically trying to get my shibas to stop hunting while trying to throw clothes on and finding a flashlight. While I enjoy watching them, it's rather cruel to the other animals (especially the outdoor cats).
What piques my interest really is that they fall naturally into hunting as a pair and the pattern has remained consistent. First they sort of bay, which is how we were alerted every time; the bark they use for prey is very distinctive. Then our boy (bigger, stronger, of equal or slightly slower speed, but less focused, less smart, and less drivey) takes the main spot in pinning the animal down in location. Our girl (smarter, more drivey, more tenacious, of equal or slightly faster speed, more agile) takes back-up. They close the circle in slowly and our girl will dart around cutting off avenues of escape every time the animal in question tries to make a break for it. Once they get close enough they dart in and out a bit, taking turns striking until victory is achieved. Our girl has no interest in tearing the animal apart, but our boy does (which necessitates a very late night bath).
I usually see talk about nk hunting solo and not being good in a pack, so the fact that they naturally fall into this cooperative pattern without distracting each other is very interesting to me. For those who have seen they dogs' prey drive inaction, have you seen something similar?
For background, we live in a city, in a pretty urban area with a small yard. I am told by long time residents though, that there is strangely a lot of wildlife that wanders even into our area. Both my dogs come from show lines. Their sire is a Japanese import, but one that I always understood to not be sharp (perhaps I am mistaken, @lindsayt is more familiar with the sire's lines than I am). Their dam's lines are american in origin and also as I understand it, not particularly sharp. My breeder was breeding for slightly softer, more people oriented dogs though with instincts intact. My two are full brother and sister from different litters. The boy is retired from conformation. The girl is a bit of an outlier from my breeder's program as she is much sharper, more drivey, and far less people oriented than the other dogs in his program. They are very bonded with each other.
We don't hunt, but we allow them to tree animals on leash. The boy tends to barrel through and our girl tends to stalk until she's within striking distance on leash and then sprints (she calculates leash length, but I always quietly pull the leash a foot short during the stalking process, I don't want her to kill needlessly). If our girl didn't have such a high exploratory drive we probably would think about training to hunt with her. She's naturally very focused, highly adaptable, unfazed by new things or noises, very strategic, and very tenacious and has been that way since ten weeks old.
I'm from NYC so absolutely no experience hunting. B has done it as a teenager with his grandfather, but with scent hounds. Their pattern to me, doesn't sound like the norm for western hunting dogs, but is it more common in NK? Do they usually cooperate like that? I also wonder if the pattern is the girl's doing since she's executed some complicated strategies (with other goals) in the past and my boy....not so much. I suspect the boy may just be doing his normal charge ahead thing and my girl doing her normal observe and strategize pattern, thus playing back up.
I have seen it with kuma. He hunts very well in conjunction with my Kai. If he and tora are together, you can hang it up. They won't stop till they lose the scent, kill it, or get tired.
Conker gets competitive more than cooperative. He'll butt the other dog out of the way or start a snarkfest if they get something first. But the other dogs aren't Shibas... Anyways, he makes a pretty good squirrel/flushing dog for one with little formal training.
Once the snow was bit deep so she was able to catch up to the squirrel and get it. The squirrel was able to get away, but Saya pursued and barked at it while it was in the trees chattering away.
Saya kept it on the tree for good while I would have had a good shot of it too if I had a gun, but it wasn't squirrel season at that time.
Saya would listen to me so she wasn't ignoring me just into the game..
I only have one shiba so no help on this.
I let her chase after a rabbit in the field it got into the woods and Saya continued to follow, but eventually lost it and returned to me. She got tons of her home made treats for listening.
I do have her chase the Canadian geese that comes to my pond she helps a lot with keeping them from staying. She leaves the geese alone unless I tell her to chase the geese. She just runs at the geese and they run into the pond then fly off or fly off from land.
My rule for the dogs is no chasing deer as that's big no no also no neighbor cats or livestock.
I do work with her to leave it and come when she sees rabbits and stuff so she isn't too uncontrollable.
She is pretty good at finding animal dens. She's found at least four dens while on our woods off leash walk in winter. One was a coyote or fox one I think from looks of it.
I always tell her to leave it so she doesn't sniff it for too long.
Saya striking her squirrel pose. She spotted one while on our short walk.
Another pic Day it was taken she had chased a squirrel up a different tree, but the squirrel came off the pear tree before she saw it then went after it.
I took the picture later on as I was taking pics of things in my yard and I noticed her sniffing by the pear tree then she sniffed the tree and looked up for a bit so I got the pic.
She didn't see the squirrel when it came from the pear tree so she must smelled it and wanted to check in case it came back I dunno.
I use squirrel pelt as a flirt toy she'll chase it and stuff also if I toss it she'll go fetch it for me or if I go lay it somewhere and tell her get the squirrel she'll go get it and bring it to me. Fetch is her favorite game to play that is for sure.
I have a bag of quail feathers which have the scent on it so I plan make another flirt pole type toy with that.
I also have a groundhog pelt to tan which I plan to make one as flirt toy and scent training. Saya already knows groundhog scent and she detected it under my shed before I knew it was there.
I used to do scent stuff with quail, but ran out of quail so I need buy some more.
Saya is mainly my companion, but I do try satisfy her prey drive with pelts and scents of quail and stuff.
She's good walking buddy too. Amazing how well she does since she is a shiba.. She'll be exploring the woods area by my yard while I pulled wood and branches out of the woods so it'd be bit nicer to walk in and she'd stay in the area and would come to me when called or come to me on her own.. She is an odd bird.
In 1994, Mr. Ichihara acquired 50 days old shiba pup. He named this red bitch "Koro". Koro was not an easy pup to train and he could not call her back very well until she was full one year old. On several occasions he had to leave her in the mountain and retrieve her the next day. Otherwise, she had a very good quality to be an excellent hunting dog, easily maneuvering in and out of bushes and streams. By the time Koro was three years of age, she became a wonderful companion for Mr. Ichihara in the mountains of Tanzawa.
Makes me think my Shiba could have been a good hunting dog. He certainly has the drive for it!
I went to the Taber Pheasant Festival here in southern Alberta a couple years ago, where they planted some pheasants and them provided shotguns and equipment for beginners to hunt with mentors. There were a lot of different dogs there to demonstrate as well. Most of them were springer spaniels and some GSPs, but there was one shiba inu!
The shiba belonged to the wife of an experienced pheasant hunter, and then when she got into it with her husband, she would just bring her dog along. She said they didn't train the shiba much. They also had a very well-trained pointer and they took them out together and the shiba stayed fairly close and flushed naturally, much like a spaniel. She said the shiba was a very good hunter, but not so good with the retrieving. Pretty good, considering they didn't select the dog with any hunting characteristics in mind and didn't train her much either. It was really, really cool.
I would totally hunt pheasants or other small game with a shiba. I think it'd be really fun.
I think bird hunting with NK is like that- I did *some* training with my Kai, but it was mostly around exposure to the gun. Other training was stuff we did anyway- like recall and exposure to wild birds and habitat and praising them for tracking and scenting and celebrating flushes. They both had at least 2 years of finding and flushing grouse before I decided to capture what they do naturally, buy a shotgun and join them. They wont be like pointers- I agree that they hunt like spaniels, like Heidi said. I wouldn't attempt to overtrain them for it, or train the traditional western bird dog ways (force retrieves, pinching and barrel-standing, plank work), nor would I go out and get a 'better' bird dog to bag more birds- I don't love hunting in that way- but I do love this land, these dogs, and doing something natural together.
My dog (West Siberian Laika) didn't receive any formal training. He has good nerve, so noise-habituation wasn't required like it is with dogs with weak nerves. But for flighty breeds like many gun-dogs, I would still recommend gun-shot conditioning.
The only thing I did special which other dog-owners don't do is take him for a walk in the woods every day. Secured permission from landowners who have forested lots for the days where I couldn't drive out onto public lands.
I didn't worry so much about him venturing too far away since he was only 11-12 weeks old and only began exploring his independence which only kicked in at 8 months old.
So why a whistle? To teach him to head in the same direction I go in. Using voice scares the game. So, any time I turned left, I would whistle and use a hand signal pointing in the same direction of travel; and if I turned right, whistle and a signal indicating. We crisscrossed to teach him the proper way to find game. At some point, the whistle wasn't really required but a mere pointing.
Of course, as he got older, he gradually started going further and further away. But because I change directions, he learns to check in once every 15 minutes. His typical range, according to GPS, was 50 to 200 meters. Once he went 1 kilometer after a coyote, then intersected a moose after he killed the 'yote.
There's a few times when he bayed up the wrong animal. So, what I would do is set up camp and build fire and wait him to break and come back. With patience, he stops pursuing junk. This may not be an option for people who can't let their dogs chase livestock or deer; so this is where shock collar becomes valuable-- when the law mandates any dog chasing ungulates or livestock can be shot.
I don't recommend "disappearing" on your dog like what gun-dog owners do to keep their dogs "sticky"-- unless your goal is to keep them within 50 meters at all time. Someone once found my dog and tied him to a post. Then someone else had the wisdom to untie him and let him lead back to me. After that incident, he became really clingy and took a few months to regain his independence.
Shotgun came in when it was hunting season and he treed a few grouses. Sneak up, shoot, find another bird, repeat.
Nowadays, he ranges 100 to 500 meters with hunting experience under his belt.
He was gun-shy once because of my father deciding to blast bottles for fun, and he ran right into the line of fire expecting to find a carcass. But that quickly went away when we shot another bird for him the week after, then he was no longer gun-shy.
With older dogs which haven't received off-leash experience since they were puppies, I would recommend a toning collar to keep them in check from wandering too far. Seen a lot of older dogs ranging in excess of 1 kilometer when owners finally decided to "train" them for bird-works.
The more I learn about training techniques in different countries, the more similarities I see. Yes, there are different ways of explaining the techniques largely due to the usage of the language and the inadequate translation of explaining those concepts. However, once seen in person, the principles are more or less the same.
Now I am more of a believer in the idea of cultural disconnect. The lack of hunting has to do more with lack of land access. With no land access, people don't breed for those traits anymore because there is no reason to. There isn't any knowledge lost or anything. Hence why I am a strong advocate of public lands, and against strengthening of trespass laws. If we lose those, then we lose the purpose of the dogs.
One of the old-time hunters in Finland told me registration of small-game hunting spitzes is declining not because the game is decreasing or the lack of interest in the sport; but rather more and more people are moving to the cities and finding gun-dogs easier to train and easier to live with in apartments. Spitzes are still vastly popular amongst rural hunters, but not so much amongst "city-hunters".
And the same trend is occurring in North America. As more hunters are living in cities, less people are buying hounds and curs and instead are buying more HPR breeds like Deutsch Drahthaar and Münsterländer.
I gotta a disagree with ya a little Dave. The biggest loss in hunter numbers right now, at least in the US and Japan, is due to firearm restrictions and the cost to go hunting. There's still quite a bit of public land around the country although the better hunting is found on private property.
In California, surveys have shown that the decline in hunter numbers are due to hunting restrictions and license cost. Recently a major lead ammo ban was passed in my state which have affected ammunition sales. There's a lot of public access here but older hunters are giving up or going out of state.
I have read that in Japan, the average age of hunters there is 65yo or so. Hunting is very expensive and there are major firearms restrictions that make it difficult for people to obtain guns. There's a lot of hunt able land in Japan although it maybe fewer than what we would see here.
I am willing to concede to those points, but they certainly don't explain why gun-ownership is very high in remote areas in countries with strict gun-laws; or why hunting is very low in areas with high urbanization but laxed gun laws. The decline in hunting is world-wide and there's only one factor with unify all the countries in the world.
Hunting has become very expensive, especially when the commutes are becoming longer and longer. I know around Edmonton, if one want to find a huntable land for deer, they would have to drive at least two hours mostly because land-owners are not very happy with city-hunters constantly knocking in their doors asking for permission, so the policy nowadays is to say "no" to everyone except friends and relatives; and lots of people are avoiding nearby public lands because they're over-crowded by other hunters. They want that peace and solititude without running into someone else.
I share that frustration with the local hunting scene at the moment. It wasn't bad 15 years ago when the city only numbered 30 000. But now with 55 000, it seems like every quad and off-road recreational users are out there to ruin my hunts. I would like to see licencing reduce the number of people using those vehicles because my elk shouldn't be spooked 30 meters right in front of me just because someone behind me decided to see what I was doing. I can't count how many time I wanted to throw my stuff on the ground.
At this point, I am considering just booking time off from work to commute to remote areas rather than going on weekends in my own area. The further away I am from those yahoos, the less likely they will spook my game.
Private property is no good for me because a lot of the truly wild-game such as grouse, mule deer and caribou are gone from those areas. Only pheasant, white-tailed deer and moose remain on private property.
On the other hand, pheasant shoots and high-fence hunts are becoming more popular because of that: less commuting. I certainly understand why someone rather spend a few thousands toward an outfitter near their home rather than driving to public lands.
Comments
I don't hunt at all. I completely back my bitch line however in terms of working drive and she (Farrah) is what I am selecting for. She's doing great in Flyball lessons so far and holds a strong bite under pressure, great retrieve and doesn't give up. She is prooving to be quite a capable hunter for moles and birds. Her nephew is trying out for the team as well and her other nephew who lived with me for a bit also had incredible drive, and like Patrice's boy, it comes down from their shared sire/grandsire who is consistently producing dogs with outstanding drive, steady nerves and great type.
I'm not sure how to even go about "training" Farrah to hunt since I don't have those connections that Patrice has and I don't want to lose my foundation bitch in the wilderness. I would love to know more about it however and if there are other, safer ways to prove ability.
From the age of 4 weeks, with the breeders assistance, I have been working with her on drive, focus and confidence, and giving her as many opportunities to be successful in prey games (hunting quail wings, loud noise exposure, retrieves and bite work under pressure, etc) as possible. I don't really have to do much work with her aside from providing opportunity, as she is a natural.
The author of latter one took the video which shishiinu had post at top.
In Japan Police is quite strict to hunters for keeping licenses and guns. The average age of hunters is getting older and older every year.
What are these books called? I want them!
"the Shiba Inu" by G.A.A. Lane
ISBN: 0-646-02169-9
November 1990
Except, um... this one doesn't hunt anymore. Old age and all. Good all-purpose dog. Haven't met another Shiba of the same calibre though.
Has anyone seen shibas do a hunt non-solo? I ask because small animals have recently been making their way into our yard, and usually around our dogs' midnight constitutional, I've had the pleasure of frantically trying to get my shibas to stop hunting while trying to throw clothes on and finding a flashlight. While I enjoy watching them, it's rather cruel to the other animals (especially the outdoor cats).
What piques my interest really is that they fall naturally into hunting as a pair and the pattern has remained consistent. First they sort of bay, which is how we were alerted every time; the bark they use for prey is very distinctive. Then our boy (bigger, stronger, of equal or slightly slower speed, but less focused, less smart, and less drivey) takes the main spot in pinning the animal down in location. Our girl (smarter, more drivey, more tenacious, of equal or slightly faster speed, more agile) takes back-up. They close the circle in slowly and our girl will dart around cutting off avenues of escape every time the animal in question tries to make a break for it. Once they get close enough they dart in and out a bit, taking turns striking until victory is achieved. Our girl has no interest in tearing the animal apart, but our boy does (which necessitates a very late night bath).
I usually see talk about nk hunting solo and not being good in a pack, so the fact that they naturally fall into this cooperative pattern without distracting each other is very interesting to me. For those who have seen they dogs' prey drive inaction, have you seen something similar?
For background, we live in a city, in a pretty urban area with a small yard. I am told by long time residents though, that there is strangely a lot of wildlife that wanders even into our area. Both my dogs come from show lines. Their sire is a Japanese import, but one that I always understood to not be sharp (perhaps I am mistaken, @lindsayt is more familiar with the sire's lines than I am). Their dam's lines are american in origin and also as I understand it, not particularly sharp. My breeder was breeding for slightly softer, more people oriented dogs though with instincts intact. My two are full brother and sister from different litters. The boy is retired from conformation. The girl is a bit of an outlier from my breeder's program as she is much sharper, more drivey, and far less people oriented than the other dogs in his program. They are very bonded with each other.
We don't hunt, but we allow them to tree animals on leash. The boy tends to barrel through and our girl tends to stalk until she's within striking distance on leash and then sprints (she calculates leash length, but I always quietly pull the leash a foot short during the stalking process, I don't want her to kill needlessly). If our girl didn't have such a high exploratory drive we probably would think about training to hunt with her. She's naturally very focused, highly adaptable, unfazed by new things or noises, very strategic, and very tenacious and has been that way since ten weeks old.
I'm from NYC so absolutely no experience hunting. B has done it as a teenager with his grandfather, but with scent hounds. Their pattern to me, doesn't sound like the norm for western hunting dogs, but is it more common in NK? Do they usually cooperate like that? I also wonder if the pattern is the girl's doing since she's executed some complicated strategies (with other goals) in the past and my boy....not so much. I suspect the boy may just be doing his normal charge ahead thing and my girl doing her normal observe and strategize pattern, thus playing back up.
Anyways, he makes a pretty good squirrel/flushing dog for one with little formal training.
Once the snow was bit deep so she was able to catch up to the squirrel and get it. The squirrel was able to get away, but Saya pursued and barked at it while it was in the trees chattering away.
Saya kept it on the tree for good while I would have had a good shot of it too if I had a gun, but it wasn't squirrel season at that time.
Saya would listen to me so she wasn't ignoring me just into the game..
I only have one shiba so no help on this.
I let her chase after a rabbit in the field it got into the woods and Saya continued to follow, but eventually lost it and returned to me. She got tons of her home made treats for listening.
I do have her chase the Canadian geese that comes to my pond she helps a lot with keeping them from staying. She leaves the geese alone unless I tell her to chase the geese. She just runs at the geese and they run into the pond then fly off or fly off from land.
My rule for the dogs is no chasing deer as that's big no no also no neighbor cats or livestock.
I do work with her to leave it and come when she sees rabbits and stuff so she isn't too uncontrollable.
She is pretty good at finding animal dens. She's found at least four dens while on our woods off leash walk in winter. One was a coyote or fox one I think from looks of it.
I always tell her to leave it so she doesn't sniff it for too long.
Saya striking her squirrel pose. She spotted one while on our short walk.
Another pic Day it was taken she had chased a squirrel up a different tree, but the squirrel came off the pear tree before she saw it then went after it.
I took the picture later on as I was taking pics of things in my yard and I noticed her sniffing by the pear tree then she sniffed the tree and looked up for a bit so I got the pic.
She didn't see the squirrel when it came from the pear tree so she must smelled it and wanted to check in case it came back I dunno.
I use squirrel pelt as a flirt toy she'll chase it and stuff also if I toss it she'll go fetch it for me or if I go lay it somewhere and tell her get the squirrel she'll go get it and bring it to me. Fetch is her favorite game to play that is for sure.
I have a bag of quail feathers which have the scent on it so I plan make another flirt pole type toy with that.
I also have a groundhog pelt to tan which I plan to make one as flirt toy and scent training. Saya already knows groundhog scent and she detected it under my shed before I knew it was there.
I used to do scent stuff with quail, but ran out of quail so I need buy some more.
Saya is mainly my companion, but I do try satisfy her prey drive with pelts and scents of quail and stuff.
She's good walking buddy too. Amazing how well she does since she is a shiba.. She'll be exploring the woods area by my yard while I pulled wood and branches out of the woods so it'd be bit nicer to walk in and she'd stay in the area and would come to me when called or come to me on her own.. She is an odd bird.
http://yokohamaatsumi.the-ninja.jp/page005.html
The shiba belonged to the wife of an experienced pheasant hunter, and then when she got into it with her husband, she would just bring her dog along. She said they didn't train the shiba much. They also had a very well-trained pointer and they took them out together and the shiba stayed fairly close and flushed naturally, much like a spaniel. She said the shiba was a very good hunter, but not so good with the retrieving. Pretty good, considering they didn't select the dog with any hunting characteristics in mind and didn't train her much either. It was really, really cool.
I would totally hunt pheasants or other small game with a shiba. I think it'd be really fun.
The only thing I used was a whistle and a shotgun; and time. The training manual I used was: http://www.spj.fi/en/online+journal/from+puppy+to+hunting+dog/
The only thing I did special which other dog-owners don't do is take him for a walk in the woods every day. Secured permission from landowners who have forested lots for the days where I couldn't drive out onto public lands.
I didn't worry so much about him venturing too far away since he was only 11-12 weeks old and only began exploring his independence which only kicked in at 8 months old.
So why a whistle? To teach him to head in the same direction I go in. Using voice scares the game. So, any time I turned left, I would whistle and use a hand signal pointing in the same direction of travel; and if I turned right, whistle and a signal indicating. We crisscrossed to teach him the proper way to find game. At some point, the whistle wasn't really required but a mere pointing.
Of course, as he got older, he gradually started going further and further away. But because I change directions, he learns to check in once every 15 minutes. His typical range, according to GPS, was 50 to 200 meters. Once he went 1 kilometer after a coyote, then intersected a moose after he killed the 'yote.
There's a few times when he bayed up the wrong animal. So, what I would do is set up camp and build fire and wait him to break and come back. With patience, he stops pursuing junk. This may not be an option for people who can't let their dogs chase livestock or deer; so this is where shock collar becomes valuable-- when the law mandates any dog chasing ungulates or livestock can be shot.
I don't recommend "disappearing" on your dog like what gun-dog owners do to keep their dogs "sticky"-- unless your goal is to keep them within 50 meters at all time. Someone once found my dog and tied him to a post. Then someone else had the wisdom to untie him and let him lead back to me. After that incident, he became really clingy and took a few months to regain his independence.
Shotgun came in when it was hunting season and he treed a few grouses. Sneak up, shoot, find another bird, repeat.
Nowadays, he ranges 100 to 500 meters with hunting experience under his belt.
He was gun-shy once because of my father deciding to blast bottles for fun, and he ran right into the line of fire expecting to find a carcass. But that quickly went away when we shot another bird for him the week after, then he was no longer gun-shy.
With older dogs which haven't received off-leash experience since they were puppies, I would recommend a toning collar to keep them in check from wandering too far. Seen a lot of older dogs ranging in excess of 1 kilometer when owners finally decided to "train" them for bird-works.
Now I am more of a believer in the idea of cultural disconnect. The lack of hunting has to do more with lack of land access. With no land access, people don't breed for those traits anymore because there is no reason to. There isn't any knowledge lost or anything. Hence why I am a strong advocate of public lands, and against strengthening of trespass laws. If we lose those, then we lose the purpose of the dogs.
One of the old-time hunters in Finland told me registration of small-game hunting spitzes is declining not because the game is decreasing or the lack of interest in the sport; but rather more and more people are moving to the cities and finding gun-dogs easier to train and easier to live with in apartments. Spitzes are still vastly popular amongst rural hunters, but not so much amongst "city-hunters".
And the same trend is occurring in North America. As more hunters are living in cities, less people are buying hounds and curs and instead are buying more HPR breeds like Deutsch Drahthaar and Münsterländer.
In California, surveys have shown that the decline in hunter numbers are due to hunting restrictions and license cost. Recently a major lead ammo ban was passed in my state which have affected ammunition sales. There's a lot of public access here but older hunters are giving up or going out of state.
I have read that in Japan, the average age of hunters there is 65yo or so. Hunting is very expensive and there are major firearms restrictions that make it difficult for people to obtain guns. There's a lot of hunt able land in Japan although it maybe fewer than what we would see here.
Hunting has become very expensive, especially when the commutes are becoming longer and longer. I know around Edmonton, if one want to find a huntable land for deer, they would have to drive at least two hours mostly because land-owners are not very happy with city-hunters constantly knocking in their doors asking for permission, so the policy nowadays is to say "no" to everyone except friends and relatives; and lots of people are avoiding nearby public lands because they're over-crowded by other hunters. They want that peace and solititude without running into someone else.
I share that frustration with the local hunting scene at the moment. It wasn't bad 15 years ago when the city only numbered 30 000. But now with 55 000, it seems like every quad and off-road recreational users are out there to ruin my hunts. I would like to see licencing reduce the number of people using those vehicles because my elk shouldn't be spooked 30 meters right in front of me just because someone behind me decided to see what I was doing. I can't count how many time I wanted to throw my stuff on the ground.
At this point, I am considering just booking time off from work to commute to remote areas rather than going on weekends in my own area. The further away I am from those yahoos, the less likely they will spook my game.
Private property is no good for me because a lot of the truly wild-game such as grouse, mule deer and caribou are gone from those areas. Only pheasant, white-tailed deer and moose remain on private property.
On the other hand, pheasant shoots and high-fence hunts are becoming more popular because of that: less commuting. I certainly understand why someone rather spend a few thousands toward an outfitter near their home rather than driving to public lands.