Can you hunt with a pointing dog and a straight flusher at the same time?
 

Just wondering. Wouldn't the straight flusher just go ahead and flush whie the pointing dog is still in a point?

Not if the Flusher has been properly trained to honor the other dog's point -- or if the flusher has been properly trained to 'sit' or stop all movement (to whistle) when the flusher handler sees the other dog on point.

Both dogs need to be steady to flush/shot/fall as well.

What DocE said. They both have to be well trained or both will develop a competitiveness. The pointer will point and the flusher will hijack the point which will cause the pointer to try to get the bird before the flusher does.

Now, you have a pointer running big and out of shot range, flushing birds and a flusher who is going to watch the pointer to find birds. I've seen it happen with a springer/young wirehair combo and a lab/setter team. The owner of the setter was so upset; the dog was running big and wild flushing everything it came across. Luckily, the man's eCollar was broken or he'd have continuously burned the dog.

for grouse hunting, no way i would use pointer/flusher.for pheasant, i believe i would.when i used toby my lab with my cousins setter, toby does not even care about other dog.
he justs goes hunting.that is great thing,having 2 dogs covering area after pheasant.
but, for grouse, i think 2 dogs is problem .i like just 1 dog while hunting grouse .

been there for 46 yrs and tried 2 dog thing on grouse,NO WAY ITS GOING TO BE FUN DAY .

RABBITS ,great have 2 dogs.

last year i released about 350 birds.a hunter showed up with 2 springers.
boy he got pheasants up but they were flying way out,2 dogs were going in all directions, not good.
then i seen 2 dogs and other dog follows the other all day, not bad and usually works ok for pheasants but grouse, I DONT LIKE IT.

I currently have both a flusher and a pointing Irish Setter.. The female is my flusher mainly used to help locate birds the day before I am planning on a hunt. At times I will hunt with both of them. When my pointer is on point the female will lock up on the bird at the same time. This came about by accident while training my pointer. The flusher was never trained on this.. So I was quite impressed by it. I will take both out once in a while but do not try to over do it as I would not want to mess my pointer up. So can it be done? Yes! But I do not recomend it either as it can be very difficult. When trying to handle both different styles of hunting dogs at once..

phil,i had toby my flushing lab out today.
boy he was AWFUL to deal with.
it all started at home after i gave him slice of ham.
he hunted terrible today for grouse,hid behind trees peeking at me,barked in truck,when i got home he runs to play with kong toy.
then takes off up street to rub my neighbor like i am loser now.

HE JUST GOT PIECE OF MY MIND AS I WRITE.
2 dogs hunting is not something i want to do, i have my hands full with 1.

1. Too much sodium (salt) !
2. After that much time, do you really think he had any clue what he was being scolded for ?
(you need to correct a dog in less than 3 seconds for it to make sense to them)



.

piece of my mind was way he was acting RIGHT AS I TYPED on here not from earlier .as of now,NO MORE TABLE SNACKS........

thanks everybody for all the wonerful answers! I was very curious. I hunt one straight flusher, and was wondering if I were to get another dog if it would have had also have to be a flusher. I really appreciate it!

others had very good advice.for pheasants the pointer/flusher works fine in my opinion.
for grouse, unless flusher honors point of pointer, its not so good.

but yes, hunting pheasants with those 2 is real nice.