I'll be getting a parent imprint female Harris, raised in an open-concept mew and exposed to seeing/hearing dogs. The pup is a Small Munsterlander, it will be 5-6 months before any exposure to the hawk.
Let's see. You'll be flying a FHH over a small musterlander, which is a BIT larger than a mini-doxie, which is what I specialize in. So, this should be a bit easier, as we can probably skip that portion of the discussion where your dog might view the dog as "dinner".
My suggestion is to start with some good old fashioned manning sessions. That is, as soon as you start working with the bird, that dog should be right there the whole time. So, in that case it's not much different than working with a new PFRT. Exposure is the key. I like to also have any new HH perched out around the dog as much as possible throughout the day as well. Since my wife would kill me if the bird was muting all over the carpeting, I rigged up something like an open fronted giant hood with bars up and down the top half of the front (thanks goes out to Teddy Moritz for that idea). This allows the bird to have a clear view of everything that is goign on. Then keep the dog in a kennel crage right in sight of the bird. That dog should be a non-negotiable part of the birds life from the time you take it up to start manning.
If you'll be free lofting the bird a bit before pulling it, make sure the dog is free to run around the weathering area where the bird can see it.
In either case (starting training or free lofting first) you'll want to make sure that the dog is staked out close when the bird is eating. At first there'll be a LOT of posturing and screaming, but hunger will get you going before too long.
Keep the dog on your lap when you're manning and then again by your side when you're working on the creance. Once again, the dog should always around!!
Here's a good article about training HH's with dogs by Toby Bradshaw. There's some good basic info here: home.comcast.net/~baywingdb/hhdogs.htm. Also, you might want to check out the book Rabbit Hawkers Dogs. It's got some great info there as well. Finally, you're always welcome to send me a PM and I can help you walk through a strategy if you'd like. There's all sorts of different tricks for different stages of the game that I've learned from Teddy.
