The ability to “hunt dead” adds extra value to your retriever as an upland hunter. When a bird is down and dead, or—as sometimes happens—down but wounded, your dog is going to have to find that bird using its nose. There are plenty of drills you can do to help it learn how to use its sense of smell more efficiently.

So much of what we do with our retrievers is visual. You throw a bumper (or someone throws it for you), your retriever sees it, and goes after it. However, success in going after an object or bird that your dog didn’t see fall begins with your ability to identify the area where it makes sense to start the search. Take your dog to that area, and then help it understand that it needs to put its nose to work.

As with so many things in retriever training, a dog is learning to use its eyes and ears from the very first time you work with it in your yard. I suggest using training scent during early, informal retrieving sessions with a puppy. Any commercial sent will do. On fabric bumpers, you can rub the scent onto the body of the bumper. With plastic bumpers, you can apply scent to the throw rope so it can soak in. Another option on plastic is to use a wax-based scent so it lasts longer.

Even though your pup is using its eyes during tosses in the yard, every now and then it might not see the bumper land—maybe because the bumper lands in some taller grass. Every time your pup stumbles into one of these situations, and successfully finds the prize, it’s learning to trust its nose.

Formally Introducing the “Hunt Dead” Command

Yard sessions with a pup, such as I just described, are largely teaching through happenstance. That’s fine, but at some point in your dog’s development you’ll want to purposely strive to improve your dog’s ability to hunt dead. You are the best judge of when to go into these drills, but I strongly recommend that you’re already making good progress with marking, retrieving, and delivering to hand before you add this new wrinkle. You should also have good control of your dog when it is offlead, and you should have well established basic obedience; particularly with the “come” (or “here”) command.

The in-the-field drill I start with looks like this: I’ll walk my dog at heel and stop, making it sit. Then, I continue to walk a short distance, say 20 or 30 yards, into some sparse, low cover. With my dog watching, I’ll toss a scented bumper into the cover and then go back to the dog. I then walk the dog another 20 or 30 yards in the other direction, turn, and walk it back partway toward the point of the throw.

Now it’s time to introduce the verbal command. I want to teach my dog that this is something different than being released for a visual mark or being sent on a line for a blind retrieve. My release command, which applies in many situations, is “OK.” Then, to narrow it down to what I’m expecting here, I use, “hunt dead.” You can use whatever words you want, but the important thing is to use the same commands consistently.

Be aware of wind direction when you’re introducing this drill. You want your dog downwind of the scented bumper. This isn’t supposed to be a difficult task; what’s more important is that your dog is learning what “hunt dead” means: “Stay in this area, and use your nose because I’ve gotten you close, your job is to find it.” It’s important to note that this is quite different from “hunt ‘em up!” That’s the command I use when we first enter a field and it’s time to start covering wide swaths of cover. Feel free to repeat “hunt dead” to help ramp up the excitement and help your dog make the association.

It’s possible your dog will end up on the upwind side of the bumper and start heading out of the area, or even get confused. Now it’s up to you to call it back to the area, guiding it back into a downwind position where it will have a chance to find the bird. (This is why I mentioned earlier that you need obedience commands to be well-established; if you don’t, this drill can turn into nothing more than an out-of-control, pointless run through the training field.)

Set these first drills up in a way that makes it easy for your retriever to come up with the prize. On the other hand, don’t stand right on top of the bumper and call the dog over and over. Your job is to get the dog downwind, then let it solve the puzzle with its nose. This stage is all about the reward of success and building confidence.

Making the Drills More Challenging

When your retriever clearly understands “hunt dead” and has had some success, you can move into the next drill, which is a little more challenging. Tuck a dead bird or scented bumper in your vest, and head into a field with some low cover, running your dog as if you’re on a pheasant hunt. Get out into the cover and then, when your dog is turned away from you, toss the bird several yards to one side and fire off a blank pistol (this assumes your dog is already trained to associate the gunfire with the joy of retrieving). You want your dog to return to you when it hears the gunshot. It didn’t see anything fall, so there’s no reason to run off over the hill. Call your dog over to you and then start in with the excited “hunt dead” command. Do this enough, and your dog will learn to check in with you when you shoot, and it doesn’t see anything fall.

As your dog gets better at all the parts and pieces of these drills, increase the challenge by taking these walks in progressively taller and/or thicker cover.

Teaching a Dog to Track When “Hunting Dead”

While “hunt dead” is useful regardless of which type of gamebird you’re hunting, I’m sure any experienced hunter would agree that a wounded, running pheasant poses the most difficult challenge. If you have any experience with pheasants, you know that uneasy feeling when a bird tumbles down with only a broken wing. You know that if you see the bird’s head is up and alert, most of the time it’s going to hit the ground running. Getting to the location of the fall matters, so you know where to start searching, but expecting to find that wounded bird still lying there is usually not realistic.

Therefore, trailing becomes vitally important as a measure of a good upland dog vs. a great one. If you get your retriever into plenty of birds year after year, it’s going to learn a lot about trailing on its own. You can see a good dog get better and better as it matures. However, you can help this process along with some manufactured trailing drills.

I like to use a fresh-killed pigeon for this drill. Tie a 20-foot string to a stick or fishing rod and tie the pigeon to the other end. Go to the point where you want to start the trail and flick the bird into the grass; then start walking through the cover, keeping the bird off to your side to prevent your dog from tracking your footsteps instead of the bird.

Then, bring your dog to the starting point, give it a “hunt dead,” and encourage it to get to work. Start with a short trail of 40 or 50 yards, and then—as your retriever gets the hang of things—you can increase the difficulty by adding distance and turns to your trails. Build slowly so your dog’s efforts always end with success.

Incorporating the “Hunt Dead” Command while Hunting

Here’s one final tip you can use during hunting season, and it’s particularly valuable with young dogs. Let’s say you’ve got a rooster in the bag already, and then you drop another one that, unfortunately, gets away. We should all try our best to recover every bird, but the reality is that sometimes you just know that searching any longer is pointless and you’re never going to see that rooster again. You might as well make sure that a poor situation is still beneficial.

Just like when you were training, toss the first bird into cover, and then call your dog over and let it find it. Again, this is more important with a young dog that’s still learning. You want to do all you can to avoid a search that comes up empty; helping them believe that if they work hard enough, there will always be a bird, which will increase the amount of effort they give over time. Making sure a reward always goes along with “hunt dead” will get you further down the road toward building a truly great upland retriever.