All I have done was take my dogs out on birds practicing and getting them all excited about it. I would get a few birds for them to practice their pointing skills with and a couple of dead birds to throw out for them to find as well as retrieve. Then when the time came for the real hunting I introduce them to the real thing while they were all excited. They became very quick learners that a gun shot equals a bird down. The only problem after that was when ever they heard another gun shot they wanted to head towards it..I also took them to a bird farm before the real hunt to make sure all was going alright.. Good luck to you..