What Does Honoring A Point Mean

Honoring a point? I had no idea what that meant. I’m just a guy out here with my dog. This was back when I only had one dog. But there were all these terms being tossed around and one of them was—Honoring. Okay, what does honoring mean.

A dog honoring a point (also called “backing” the point) is recognizing – or confirming – the first dog's point

If you are out in the field and a dog goes on point, the other dogs in the hunting party should lock up and freeze to honor the first dog’s point.

This makes sense in the fact you don’t want the other dogs possibly flushing the bird that the dog has pinned.

I sometimes have a challenge with my oldest because she can’t believe that the younger ones can hunt as well as her and she will just keep hunting even though the other two are locked up on a bird.

My fear with that is eventually she will flush the bird that is pinned.

Stealing a point

Another way for a dog to ruin the hunt is to steal a point.

Of course, dad loves the dog who got the point the most. So, my youngest will sometimes try to sneak up in front of the older ones and steal the point.

In competition, this one can get messy. The dog who steals the point is disqualified.

Fighting it out

Some dogs get so possessive about their points that if their point is stolen they will get after it and let the offending dog know that in no uncertain terms that they are out of line.

Honoring vs. Backing

Backing means that the second dog is confirming the first dog’s point. Not that the dog is “in back of” the other dog. As you can see in the video, sometimes dogs come at a bird from different directions...and that is not called “fronting?”

Honoring is more accurate in my opinion because you don’t get the backing/fronting confusion. Plus the honoring part is really what the dog is communicating. The honoring dog is acknowledging that the other dog has the point is holding still to not bust the first dog’s point. And that is why I have some trouble with my oldest (and I imagine it isn’t uncommon for the alpha to have a hard time deferring to a youngster.

Luckily, most pointing breeds come with a natural tendency to honor a point. But if you are having some trouble with your pointer honoring a point gundogsonline.com has an article that might help you.