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Certainly there are a few people who can use the wing to teach things to a pup, but most don't teach anything and it is a first step in a sad sequence that has become all too common in some pointing dog training circles. The wing on a string, and it's logical successor, a quail in a harness on a fishing rod, are tools that are consistently used to create problems among versatiles although they are explained to the novice as "teaching the dog how to point". A longstanding tradition has been the wing on string sight pointing and then attempt to transfer the sight pointing into scent pointing with a live bird in a quail harness. These are almost always half baked stunts that are done because so and so "knows about dogs" and he does it... So and so, by now, is learning a great repertoire

of corrective "training" techniques to overcome the mess created by introducing a dog with strong innate pointing to sight pointing ...

The wing on the string followed by a bird on a fishing rod are just fine for simulating pointing with a dog that has little or no innate pointing but for a dog with strong pointing instincts they are the road to a peculiar brand of hell. Strong innate pointing has a very steep learning curve. that means that the dog learns all it needs to know about pointing birds with a very few repetitions.

The correct way for dogs with a strong pointing tendency , if you must, is to toss the wing once, if the dog locks up rock solid that's the last time that this dog should EVER see anything attached to a fishing rod. If the dog isn't interested in the wing you can play with it with a view to stimulating interest. To understand the problem it is essential to understand that strong innate pointing produces what is essentially one time learning.

You've perhaps seen it in the field, the first bird contact is 'what's that" the second is a hesitation and the third scent contact is a rock solid point. This pup has learned everything it needs to know about pointing, the rest of it is refining the details of how the dog gets there. The most important part of the problem is that fast learners also incorporate all the peripheral details in permanent memory. The pup with strong innate pointing is the pup that is going to learn, with terrible speed and certainty, that to point you have to get to where you can see the bird. As soon as you have gotten the young dog to understand that pointing is seeing you've screwed yourself beyond redemption.

The slower dog, the one that learns excitement and intensity through repetition, can dabble with sight pointing and can be led into scent work.

The one time learner cannot be transited, when the one time learning is sight pointing it becomes impossibly difficult to get the dog to point on scent alone.

For dogs with strong innate pointing the wing on a string very quickly produces a sight pointer, a dog that "knows" that it must use the scent to get close enough to see the bird before it points. When these dogs are introduced to pointing with the wing and the bird in a harness they become instant bird crowders and are impossible on wild game because they try to get too close before pointing.

You do not want a dog to prefer sight pointing, you want a dog that points on scent. The dog with a marginal urge to point can be teased along with a wing, the dog with a strong pointing urge is royally screwed with the wing on a string. The danger is in not knowing how much is too much for the dog in question.

How do you know when a second toss of the wing is too much? It requires experience, after you've screwed a dozen pups and realize what you have done you can begin to separate the intense pointers from the average pointers and perhaps you can learn to employ totally different methods with them. A pointer with strong instincts cannot handle wing and sight pointing games without quickly learning some very bad habits.

All pointing dogs are not the same and often we cannot safely transfer what works for X to our Y.

We learn only from our own mistakes and I admit to having cheated a lot of fine young dogs early in life. I plead guilty to producing a number of confirmed sight pointers through my own ignorance. There are few absolutes in animal behavior and so I condemn wings on strings from an excess of caution because you cannot un-ring a bell.

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