Dog is "crowding" birds?

[pojack]

Had my French Brittany out today for some bird training. He did pretty good on the first two birds. I could tell when he scented the first two and he stopped about five yards away the first two times. On the last bird, he was nearly touching the bird launcher with his nose. How do I get him to lock up on point at first scent and not crowd the birds so much?

[Mitch]

If you could tell he had scent and are using launchers I would launch them.

Mitch

[Shotgun Kennel]

If you could tell he had scent and are using launchers I would launch them.

Mitch

Yup. when he hits scent and takes a step or creeps launch the bird and don't shoot it. They get the Idea soon enough.

[Rooster_Smasher]

This is my favorite use for the remote launcher. To develop a hard slamming point I launch the bird as soon as the pup hits scent, even if it looks like he or she is going to lock and hold. Once they are slamming hard and not moving anything but their eyes, I will go in to flush the bird. If the dog relaxes, wags it tail or softens up on point I launch the bird. I also like to set it up so the dog is coming in from a cross wind. That way you can defenitly tell when the dog gets a nose full of scent. If you bring the dog in from directly down wind you will be teaching the dog to road in on the bird.

Walk in from the front of the dog, if you walk up directly beind the dog you will be kind of pushing the dog and he will want to either go ahead of you or along with you. Come from the dogs front or at an angle and give a soft whoa and a whoa hand signal.

Keep an eye on the dogs front shoulders and his rear legs, if he or she begins to lower the fronts or the rears, POP the bird outta there cuz he is about to pounce. Like I mentioned, any movement at all, pop it outta there....

Homing Pigeons are a great bird for these drills because it might take a lot of birds to get the desired results...

Gotta scoot, Tigers and Yanks are on....

Rooster

[coverdog]

If it is a young dog, I personally would quit using the launchers and start training on wild birds until he is ready to break. He will learn very quickly he can't catch them. He is already picking up bad habits with planted birds, and there are many more he MAY learn. Also with wild birds he will learn how to hunt, where to look for them and how to handle them. This is just my opinion and it has worked well enough for me.

[g&d]

The others give good advise but you didn't really say if he was creeping or not. If not, there's a good chance he didn't wind the bird until he was close. The scenting conditions aren't the greatest right now. Try to use the wind to his advantage if possible and pop the bird if he creeps like the others said.