QUARTERING
During the same period that you are working pup in the yard on sitting, you can also be taking pup out and teaching him how to quarter. I start off with the pup on a check cord and we go for a walk in the yard. When pup wanders off in one direction, I immediately turn and go the opposite way. As the rope becomes taut, I whistle with two short toots to get pup to turn and come with me. Praise pup as he turns. Continue this until pup is watching you to see what you are going to do next. Pup has to make eye contact to make this work. If he’s out hunting for himself with no care about your whereabouts, he won’t be sticking close to you or the gun. Walk in a zigzag to get pup in the habit of working in a windshield wiper pattern.

As the pup gets proficient in watching you and quartering, move to a field with moderate cover. Start throwing birds/bumpers down for pup to find. As you walk along and pup is going off to his right, toss a bird to your left without pup seeing you. Toot for pup to turn and turn him into the path of the bird. When he finds the bird, make a huge deal of it with tons of praise. Send pup back out with the command, “Go out.” Continue walking and tossing birds off to the sides.

You can speed up the quartering process if you have two helpers to play “keep-away” with pup. Position each person about 20 yards to each side as if they were gunners. Give them each a pigeon. The idea of this game is to teach pup to move from side to side while staying in gun range. Walk off with the command, “Go out,” and the helpers maintain your pace. First one helper shakes his bird and yells, “Hey, hey!” to get the pup’s attention. When pup races out to get the bird, the helper lifts it up out of reach. At this moment, the helper on the other side shakes his bird and gets the pup’s attention. Soon you have a pup quartering back and forth chasing birds. To keep pup interested in this game, move to the next step. As pup is running to the left, have the right-hand helper toss his bird to the right away from him and angled forward. When the left bird is lifted out of range, you toot for pup to turn and using body English get him moving to the right. His momentum should take him to the planted bird. He’ll get all excited and fetch the found prize.

Now you are ready to plant live birds for pup to find and flush. Ideally, you have access to live birds and a callback pen. That way you can release birds that will go back home if not shot or caught by the dog. Failing that, locate a quail hunting preserve and pay to have birds put out for pup. Do not shoot the birds yet. Plant the birds in the same zigzag pattern way you want pup to hunt, the first one about 30 yards to the left and the next one 30 yards up and to the right of center. Mark the areas with some surveyor’s tape (or flags) so you know where the birds are.