Newbie Question, following the lamplight

Can anyone offer any advice on teaching a hound to follow the lamplight?
My 9mth Deerhound has caught in the day whilst mooching, but when we're out at night, he's too busy with his head down following the bunny scent, rather than seeing the thing 35 yds in front of him.

I had thought of walking him to a place a long the fence line in the dark, let him see me place some food down, then walk him away along the fence , turn him and then illuminate the food and send him for it. Building up to extend the distance and then working him on a retrieve article and eventually the real thing.

Are there any other ways, or do most hounds to do it naturally??
Cheers,

Does he have his nose to the ground all the time or does he do it every few minutes or so?

QUOTE (THE BOSS @ January 12, 2007 11:13 am)

Does he have his nose to the ground all the time or does he do it every few minutes or so?

When we're out at night, he seems to have his nose down most of the time. He will pick up the track and follow it exctly where Ive Just seen the rabbit run in the light , but he's just not looking down the light yet. He is *very* new to this , so he hasn't had time to pick up any bad habits, he just hasn't picked up on what he's supposed to do in the dark yet!

We have a deerhound/greyhound/beddie/whippet/grey here, he's 8 months and he had the same problem, I got round it by showing him as many rabbits on the lamp as possible but not running him on any. within a week or so he was following the beam and spotting the bunnies before i was lol.

might be worth trying that with your pup.

Good luck

Do you practice retrieving in the garden?
if you do, or where ever you do it, try doing some short retrieves in the dark with a lamp (or torch), hold the dog on the lead- turn on the lamp- throw the dummy into the beam- and slip the dog telling her to fetch, get-on, or what ever command you want to use.

QUOTE (Vermin Dropper @ January 12, 2007 07:50 pm)

Do you practice retrieving in the garden?
if you do, or where ever you do it, try doing some short retrieves in the dark with a lamp (or torch), hold the dog on the lead- turn on the lamp- throw the dummy into the beam- and slip the dog telling her to fetch, get-on, or what ever command you want to use.

Tried that last night !

He's been really good on dummy retrieving in the day, but I didn't try the rabbit skin on it until last night. Threw out the skin coated dummy and sent him out for it in the lamp beam, went straight for it ! He then proceeded to be a big clown and pounce on it, throw it around, mouth it and generally have a goof about

I guess I'll be practicing some night-retrieving for a little while

QUOTE (Vermin Dropper @ January 12, 2007 07:50 pm)

Do you practice retrieving in the garden?
if you do, or where ever you do it, try doing some short retrieves in the dark with a lamp (or torch), hold the dog on the lead- turn on the lamp- throw the dummy into the beam- and slip the dog telling her to fetch, get-on, or what ever command you want to use.

thats what i was going to say works for me put a bit of reflective tape on the dummy

i totally agree with the last two posts reflective tape is really good idea also try and get a couple of squatters for him when his used to rertieving the dummies ,hows about tying some line to the dummy agd when your walking up to it get a frind to pull the dummy from a distance to get the dogs attention , but rememeber deerhounds and their crosses tend to be slower to mature both phisically and often mentally and they love to play about . so slowly slowly catches monkey ,when the penny drops there will be no turning back ,good luck .