Steve, I looked at the website and he wants $20 for his training guide. Is it worth that much? I wrote Jerry and asked about Border Collie. I'll wait to hear from him before I buy the instructions. I think my pair are probably too old to train for shagging antlers.
George,
Jerry is a better judge than I would be of a dog's age versus potential to learn. Your decision to contact him to discuss it makes plenty of sense in that regard.
From my own experience (with my son's Black Lab and my buddy's wife's Black Lab) Jerry's system was well worth it. It is not a lengthy, technical method, but the bottom line is that it worked for us. The concise info he provided had Riley finding antlers I hid in the woods within two months. Ed & I started hunting for moose sheds in the spring of 2002 by just walking moose trails near camp and looking for them. The first two years we hunted only three days total but managed to find on shed each year. Each year we hunted more days and over our first four years Ed & I found a total of 36 sheds without dogs. In the summer of 2005, I stumbled over Jerry's website and by that fall we had trained our two Labs. Since then, we have added 80 sheds to our count. Of the 80 we have found since using the dogs, Riley found 40 and Mandy (Ed's Lab) found another 11. During that same time Ed & I totalled 29 sheds between us. The dogs found 51 of the 80 sheds (over 60%). Now, to be fair, there were some of those 51 sheds that we would have found even without dogs as they were sometimes found in plain sight on an obvious moose trail and the dogs just got there and found them before we arrived. But many of the sheds we never would have seen, including a shed Riley found that weighed 13 pounds and was forty yards off the trail and under a lot of underbrush. I actually sold that specific antler for $143 to a local guy who makes antler lamps and chandeliers.
So, it has worked well for me. Here are the honest disclaimers (as all things have):
1. Our camp is in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, the most heavily populated moose territory in the state. If you (or a dog) are going to find antlers, there have to be some around. Even then, it is like hunting or fishing in general and there are good days (we found seven moose sheds one day) and bad (plenty of days with none).
2. We spend a lot of time in the woods each spring (starting about now) and do not find big numbers of sheds per hour. If you did this for a living, you would not eat well.
3. We enjoy having the dogs along for company and would have considered the training a success even if they found a lot fewer sheds than they actually have.
4. I would hunt moose sheds regardless of their "worth" as I enjoy the outdoors and this is a perfect spring activity to provide a purpose to wander the woods. The sheds are a bonus. Because often sheds are chewed up some by rodents, penturning is a perfect way to make these otherwise "worthless" sheds into nice keepsakes.
5. How great is it to give away (or sell) a pen made from a piece of antler with this story;
"The antler used on this pen came from a 10-1/2 pound moose shed found in Victory, Vermont, on May 28, 2007. Riley, a specially trained Black Lab, found the antler shed that this pen was made from."
6. For me, it is a blast. I made both my of sons cartridge pens that used moose antler Riley found, spent 30-06 cartridge cases from my own hunting rifle and bullet nibs made from the last box of bullets their grandfather bought before he passed away.
Sorry for the long reply. As you can tell, this stuff is exciting to me.
