Distance is a powerful distraction, so dogs should be thoroughly schooled in the whoa and recall commands before they are hunted in the wide open spaces.

If I have a guiding principle in the realm of training dogs; it’s that it’s far more a process of repetition than rocket science. And so it goes with potential problems: the way to cure them is to avoid them through a constant repetition of good behavior. In order to do that, however, some of you—and I was certainly one—may have to look at the training process in a different way.

Back in the day, when I was still pretty clueless about training protocol (and no, that wasn’t last week, but thanks for the helpful suggestion), I sometimes bought into ads that promised quick results. I really wanted to believe some of that stuff—that if I just knew the secret technique or had the right tools, I’d be able to bypass generations of traditional dog training methods and have a finished dog in a fraction of the time.

There was a grain of truth to some of that nonsense. E-collars can certainly nip bad potential behavior in the bud, as thousands of owners of snake-proofed bird dogs will attest. But curing an ongoing, well-defined problem is one thing; training is a horse of a different color. Effective training is a long-term commitment, and in that respect it hasn’t changed in a couple hundred years. So a far more realistic approach is to concentrate on thoroughness, not speed, and to anticipate future problems and plan for them.

Big Bang
For the sake of this piece, let’s put aside the truly weird stuff—dogs that bark at people in pink shirts or chase their tails until they collapse, that type of thing—and focus on problems that every trainer, from the first-time dog owner to an established professional, wants to prevent. For that, we might as well start at the beginning, with gun-shyness.

Acclimating your new pup to the sound of gunfire isn’t difficult, and there is more than one way to do it correctly. Yet, I’m continually amazed at the creative ways people find to screw it up. Whatever you do, don’t introduce your dog to gunfire by taking it to a gun range or shooting a shotgun over its head to “see what it will do.”

Thousands of dogs have been introduced to gunfire this way, and true enough, most seem to weather the experience with no ill effects. But why take a chance? Gun-shyness is easy to prevent, but nearly impossible to cure. You need to do a thorough, gradual job and you need to do it slowly.

Start by introducing your new pup to gamebirds. I’ve covered this extensively in this column so I won’t go into further details here. The idea is to get your puppy chasing the bird, something it should love to do. When your pup has had two or three weeks of daily bird chasing under its belt you’re ready to introduce gunfire.

I start with a simple clapper I make with two boards joined on one end with a hinge. When they’re slapped together, they make a sharp “crack!” The harder you smack them, the louder the noise. When the dog’s complete attention is focused on chasing the bird, I make two or three mild cracks with the clapper and observe the dog.

Nine times out of 10, they completely ignore the sound. After a few days of that, I switch to a starting pistol held behind my back, then fire it progressively closer to the dog. Eventually, I switch to a 20-gauge shotgun, fired at successively closer ranges, always while the dog is chasing the bird.

This is nothing new and it’s certainly not a technique I invented. The point is to stay with it. Stopping too soon allows for the possibility of your dog being spooked by too much gunfire. From beginning to end, the process takes me a minimum of two months, often longer. If the dog shows the slightest unease at the sound of the shot—not uncommon—I back off and slow down. When he finally graduates, however, he’s good to go. I’ve never had a dog backslide after it’s been put through several months of a slow, gradual acclimatization to gunfire.

Ease your dog into new experiences, and don't rush -- it's a process.

Field Work
Avoiding problems in the future is as much a process of knowing how you want your dog to behave as it is a process of knowing what you don’t want. Want your dog to quarter in the pocket? Loosely defined, “quartering in the pocket” means that your dog works an area in front of you between 10 and 2 o’clock (9 and 3 o’clock is also acceptable).

It’s a great idea, but exactly how do you get your dog to do that? For years, I hadn’t a clue. My dogs ran all over the damn landscape, including behind me. Some still do. Then I happened across a few sentences addressing that very subject in the late Bob Wehle’s book, Wing & Shot. He suggested keeping puppies on a lead and gently pulling them forward whenever they fell behind, then teaching them to turn forward on two whistle blasts.

I gave it a try, and lo and behold, it worked like a charm. But it didn’t happen overnight. I started Tango, my newest pup, when she was just a few weeks old, and continued to work with her on it until she began hunting nine months later. Today, she reliably quarters in the pocket and when needed, turns on two whistle blasts. Problem avoided.

Using Distractions
Thinking of training as instilling gradually accumulated skills in your pup’s noggin turns your thoughts to the future and where you want him to be in one, two or even three years, not next week. Nowhere is that more true than when training your dog to whoa and come, perhaps the two most important commands he’ll ever learn. The nuts and bolts of teaching both commands aren’t difficult, and again, there are perfectly good ways to teach them. But it’s the process that is critical and what I want to talk about here.

Over the years, I’ve found it helpful to look at training as consisting of two stages: the first stage, during which your dog is schooled in the actual mechanics of whatever it is you’re trying to get him to do, and the second stage, in which you reinforce what he’s learned while he’s actually hunting. The first stage is critical, but the second stage is what you’re shooting for.

Let’s say you’ve trained your dog to whoa on a bench followed by a whoa board, then progressed to planted birds in the field (essentially the way I do it). You now have a dog that whoas reliably on planted birds. Is he ready to hunt? Nope.

What your dog needs now are distractions. Distractions, after all, are what he’ll be bombarded with on an actual hunt—other dogs, other hunters, the exciting scent of wild birds; smells and sounds he’s never scented or heard before. Controlled distractions added now are how you prevent your dog from being rattled by uncontrolled distractions later.

Distractions can be just about anything, as long as you introduce them gradually. Moving a dog out of its familiar environment and into a new one—say, a completely new training field—may be all the distraction he can handle at first. Then, as the bird flies off, you’ll want to add gunfire. Having another person accompany you adds another level of distraction. The point of these exercises is that your dog must remain steady on “whoa” until you send him on, no matter the distraction.

A pigeon is a tempting distraction when you are reinforcing the whoa command.

Training your dog to come on command? Distractions will work here, too. You’ll first want to train him to recall from farther and farther away (distance is a powerful distraction). Then teach him to recall while he’s playing or running with another dog. When he’ll do that, he’s ready for the field.

At this point, your dog should have at least a couple months of whoa and recall training, both with and without distractions, under his belt. It would be a waste and a shame to throw away all your hard work on his first day of hunting. So don’t. Have a game plan. Anticipate what might go wrong (you should have a pretty good idea after having spent weeks observing his reaction to distractions), and rehearse how you’ll respond when (not if) something does. Forget about shooting birds; let someone else do that while you handle your dog.

Keep your eye on long-term goals and your dog on the path of righteousness. Eventually, you’ll have a dog that, by and large, does the right thing out of habit. And that is a very pleasant place to be, indeed.

Knuckles is caught in a bitter custody dispute

We know you love your bird dog, but how much would you consider paying if someone kidnapped the pooch and drove him across the country? I know of a certain family member that would be thankful for it; no more waking up at 5 a.m. on a Sunday to yell out the window because his Lab’s barking just woke up everyone in the county.

But Craig Dershowitz, a 34-year-old man from New York City, has already shelled out over $60,000 in lawyers’ fees for his puggle, Knuckles. Seems as though his ex-girlfriend, Sarah Brega, made off to California with the half-pug, half-beagle pup after the two broke up.

Brega says Knuckles was a gift. Meanwhile, Dershowitz is trying to win his “son” back in Manhattan state Supreme Court, spending more than what many people make in a year to do so.

With the “custody” fight raging, the proud papa has started a website to raise money for his court costs. People willing to donate $250—he raised $85 in the first week—can play fetch with Knuckles as a reward for their charity. For the sake of common decency, I will not list that web address. But if you want to fill Dershowitz’s coffers, by all means conduct your own Internet search.

I’m more worried about the kind of stress this entire ordeal is putting on Knuckles (a cross-country move followed by a bitter custody battle making national headlines)? It’s always the kids that pay.

Obsesity is the standout problem from pups, but Arthritis has also increased significantly in the past five years, according to the report. Canine arthritis has one up some 38 percent and other dogs have had problems with high blood pressure and diabetes.

All of these, the study suggests, have to do directly is the weight issues. Almost half of dogs with arthritis–the report analyzed data from the 2 million dogs at over 800 hospitals–were obese.

Ear infections are also common in dogs, with 18 percent of mature adults hitting the hospital with the sometimes serious problem. Matching the ear problems in commonality is Nuclear Sclerosis, an aging-related eye condition that is similar to cataracts, which is experienced by almost 20 percent of mature dogs.

These chronic diseases are on the rise but the study also suggests that owners might not be completely aware of how to prevent or spot the problems. Only 36 percent of dog owners said they would take their pet to see a vet to manage such a condition.

What do you think is the most common health problem in gun dogs? How do you ensure your dog stays healthy?

The author with her 2-year-old golden retriever

Ever had your eye wiped by someone else’s dog? You don’t want to, believe me. It’s humiliating! It almost happened to me on a recent trip with my dog to Tennessee, the promised land of dog training and field trials.

I grew up here and hadn’t been back in 30 years. What better occasion to return than during a glorious fall for pheasants and a new seminar on gun dog training?

So Buck, my 2-year-old golden retriever, and I loaded on a plane and flew from “the land of no seasons” in northern California to the home of Duckhill Kennels, an hour east of Memphis. Our mission was to learn about a new gun dog sport taking hold in the South and Midwest: British-style field trials. This isn’t a new sport, per se; it is the original model our American field trials were built on.

There’s a new movement making it popular again, along with the British strain of Labrador retriever. These Labs are largely born with the behavior of delivering retrieved objects to hand, making it unnecessary to force-fetch them. They are also bred to be calm companions as well as peak performers in the field, according to Robert Milner, who breeds British Labs at Duckhill Kennel. And from what I saw of his 5-week-old puppies to 5-year-old adults, it’s absolutely true.

The big attraction to these trials and British training methods, for me, was the lack of force training. No force to pile, force to water, force anything. For dogs bred to be highly trainable and good at hunting, like my golden, this philosophy says it’s not necessary to use force. It’s very believable after watching several British-trained dogs complete 175-yard blind retrieves through walls of 5-foot tall brush and woods, guided by whistle and hand signals, then stand at heel, steady as a rock, while they watch another dog work.

Even better, these trials are like a real pheasant hunt. You’re in the field with your dog and competitors for the entire duration of the trial. You get more than one at-bat and get to experience the excitement of the flush, shot and fall—which are nearly always unpredictable. Some daylong trials will have a pheasant hunt in the morning with a duck and water trial in the afternoon.

We had a practice trial at Duckhill in early November to show us the ropes. It consisted of two pheasant hunts. Picture a pair of large farm fields bordered by tall brush and orange- and yellow-leafed trees. We only had three handlers and five dogs, but a real trial will have at least 12 handler/dog teams. We lined up horizontally behind a line of gun-toting locals eager for a chance to shoot some birds. Out in front was a Scotsman named Alex, clad in tweed hat and upscale wellingtons, with his prize springer spaniel.

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As participants, we followed behind as the springer quartered the field. Suddenly, a cackling rooster burst into the blue sky, bolting to the far right. A couple shots crippled the bird, landing him in chest-high reeds.

This is an occasion for a good eye wipe. A dog’s number is called and that handler must send the dog from their spot in the field to get the bird. If the dog comes back empty-handed—or empty-mouthed, rather—another dog is sent. If the second dog does find the bird, it’s assumed the handler of the first failed dog is shedding tears of embarrassment. Therefore, the successful second dog and handler would then help wipe away the tears, giving us the term “eye-wipe.”

On one occasion, my dog did come out of the brush empty-handed, but the second and third dogs didn’t succeed either. Phew, talk about holding your breath!

It’s hard to get bored at a British-style field trial. It’s exciting when the bird’s flush, and the retrieving scenario is different every single time. You may wonder how the dogs get judged fairly if the elements are different for each dog.

From what I understand, the core skills of the dog and the handler’s ability to handle the dog to an unseen bird remain constant, no matter where the bird lands. And I believe the judges try their best to ensure each dog gets the same number of easy or hard retrieves.

The whole experience can take about two hours, all of which is spent in the field, with your dog, watching bird’s flush naturally and shot for your dog to find and pick up. Meanwhile, you get to know the other folks competing and to share the whole experience with them. This is much better, in my opinion, than having your dog in the truck most of the day waiting for a turn to perform, which may take all of five minutes.

To me, a person totally obsessed with gun dogs and bird hunting, the British-style trial is heaven on earth. It didn’t hurt that I had spent the previous week exploring the narrow country roads around Somerville, Grand Junction and Moscow, Tenn.—the small towns near Duckhill. This is an area ripe with gun dog history and activity, with the National Bird Dog Museum located there as well as Ames Plantation, the Mecca of pointing dog trials.

More than that, this is an area of timeless pastoral beauty. Fall colors against stark white plantation homes, deep green pasture fenced with white post and rail. It was as if time had stood still since generations of my father’s family had farmed there.

He died when I was an infant, so I never knew him or much of that side of the family. But being there, I knew they had driven those same country roads and hunted those same fields and woods. It felt like I belonged. What a great place for the birth of this up-and-coming hunting dog sport.

Milner deserves a lot of the credit for developing the stateside competitions. It is still in its infancy and there have been a few bumps along the way the last two years. But now there are a lot more people and clubs involved in cultivating the new sport and the positive, no-force training methods that go along with it.

During my recent visit with Robert, he said he was working to develop an official registry for the sport and the dogs that participate. He said this registry will act as an overseeing body for the British-style trials, making sure the right rules are followed and that judges are properly trained.

In addition, this will make it possible for dogs who succeed in the trials to get an official title to put with their names to help guide breeding, much like American Field and American Kennel Club trial enthusiasts look for puppies born to dogs with field trial titles attached to their names.

I will watch with intense interest as this sport evolves. If there’s anything as fun as hunting with your dog and pals in the field, it’s got to be a British-style field trial!

When it arrived in North America, however, several changes came about to reduce the status of this breed as a functional gun dog. Though introduced here in the 1920s, the Weimaraner did not become popular until the 1950s when the Weimaraner Club of America hired a professional publicist to promote them as a “super dog” designed to out-hunt all other versatile breeds. The exaggerated claims created a surge in the number of dogs bred and sold. But when the claims were exposed to the harsh light of reality, the Weimaraner’s popularity and reputation as a gun dog plummeted.

About this same time, the dog show people picked up the Gray Ghost as a flashy favorite for winning ribbons at Westminster. The Weimaraner’s hunting genetics took a downturn with more emphasis on appearance on the show bench than prowess in the field. Though some hunt testers, a few field trialers, and a handful of gamebird hunters kept the Weimaraner’s original purpose alive, the breed had at best a compromised position compared to most other popular versatile breeds.

In the 1990s, the Weimaraner’s reputation as a gun dog took yet another hit when a professional photographer used several Weimaraners for a series of pictures in which the dogs were dressed in people clothes and phony wigs. While this may have created another upturn in the popularity of the dogs among the general public, it further undermined the breed’s original purpose as a hunter.

The good news nowadays is there’s a much brighter future for the breed because of the revival of its role as a hunting dog in North America.

Hunt ‘Em Up
By breeding Weimaraners from field trial stock with dogs imported from Germany, Judy Balog has produced three Versatile Champions in the NAVHDA testing program.

“The field trial bloodlines have offered an increased range and speed in the field and the original German genetics have brought in greater nose sensitivity and hunting intensity,” Balog says. “Generally, our hunting line of Weimaraners is physically a little smaller and has more stamina than many of their American lines from the distant past.

“Our Weimaraners tend to be dynamos that some less experienced hunters and dog owners might find a little harder to train and to handle. That’s why I introduce e-collars early in my dogs’ training program as a good way to shape behavior from the start and to avoid problems later. An e-collar with a remotely activated beeper also makes hunting more efficient and enjoyable, especially when chasing after ruffed grouse around our home in Michigan or when making trips to South Dakota for pheasants.”

For anyone wanting to buy a Weimaraner intended for hunting, Balog recommends looking for proof of the parents’ abilities when considering a pup or started dog.

“Personally see the parents of any for-sale Weimaraner at work on an actual hunt or during a realistic facsimile of a hunting experience,” Balog emphasizes. “There is an old saying that ‘you pay for the puppy, but you get the mom and dad.’ In other words, seeing the parents at work on live gamebirds, whether wild or pen-raised, will tell you a lot about their offspring.

“Check out official credentials,” Balog advises. “Parents with high scores in field trials, AKC or UKC hunt tests, or in the NAVHDA testing programs will most probably produce pups with lots of genuine old-style hunting instincts in them.

To contact Balog, e-mail her at judybalog@chartermi.net or call (231) 938-4426.

Feathers or Fur?
“Weimaraners bred from first generation German imports might tend to be big-game hunters—whether the dog’s owner likes that tendency or not,” says Allen Fine, owner of two German-born 7-year-olds. “On our first hunt for prairie grouse in South Dakota, both my dogs took off after a young buck antelope. By the time I got out my e-collar transmitter, Boz and Rick were over a steep hill and out of sight. Fortunately, both of them came back in 20 minutes—with the young antelope following behind them.”

When the dogs saw the antelope, they both gave chase again. “This time I was ready to deliver maximum stimulation which convinced them that antelope were no fun and were not to be hunted. Since then the same lesson has been taught to educate them about running after deer in Kansas and moose in Minnesota,” Fine says.

“One thing I learned from these unwanted hunting experiences is that my Weimaraners could be taught by using the e-collar to stay away from big game. The dogs could also be persuaded the same way to avoid undesirable encounters with snakes, skunks, raccoons, porcupines, and any other critters out there that can wreck a hunt for gamebirds.”

Hunting in Range
“Fritz was a big runner from the time he was a little puppy,” Ed Truelock says to explain why his 2-year-old Weimaraner had already disappeared way down the field in an AKC Hunt Test. The judges, mounted on horses, were the only ones able to keep up with the speeding, wide-ranging dog. Fritz did find and point a couple of quail, and once the birds were flushed, he was off again at a fast pace to find more of the little birds.

“My first Weimaraner was out of show dog lines and, though he hunted up close, he didn’t hunt very hard or produce much game when we went after quail in Texas or pheasants in Nebraska,” Truelock recalls. “So I looked into Weimaraners from field trial stock and bought Fritz, who had more drive, a better nose, and greater speed—much greater speed, in fact.”

Fritz covered four times more ground in one-fourth the time of Truelock’s first Weimaraner, which was a big problem in any thick cover where the dog couldn’t be seen.

“When hunting ruffed grouse in Michigan last year, I lost Fritz for three hours,” Truelock reports. “After that experience, I got an e-collar with a beeper-locator. And though Fritz still runs fast and far, I can now more easily find him.”

The beeper-locator is also used by Truelock as a communication tool with multiple beeps as a signal for the dog to come in when necessary.

“I lean on the locator button to produce multiple beeps that let Fritz know he should start looking for me when we are in tall prairie grass, dense cattails, or thick timber,” he says.

“By combining the continual beeps with some mild stimulation, I taught Fritz in about a week of training to consistently come in on command, which encourages him to hunt close as a regular habit.”

Training Methods
“Most well-bred Weims that I’ve seen respond well to traditional training techniques,” says Cam Rice, who lives in Michigan where she and her husband regularly hunt ruffed grouse and woodcock. “Teaching basic obedience and doing yard work is pretty much the same as for any other breed of gun dog except that some Weims can get bored with routine exercises. This is mainly because they tend to be too smart to put up with too much repetition. So the trainer needs to understand this and adjust lessons to keep any teaching fresh and different—and entertaining.”

Rice and her husband regularly use their Weimaraners when guiding on hunting preserves for pheasants, bobwhite quail and chukars.

“Several hundred bird contacts at a preserve every year are a good way to test our training techniques and to see how much talent our dogs have,” Rice says. “Watching the dogs point and retrieve several species of pen-raised and released birds is also a good way to evaluate each dog’s desire, nose, cooperation, and tracking ability—something we might not see as much when hunting wild birds. Though we test our Weimaraners in NAVHDA, the hunting preserve tells us a lot about how good each dog is.

“All our Weimaraners are also duck and goose hunters that will handle on blind retrieves out to several hundred yards. In icy water, we put a neoprene vest on our dogs to protect them from the extreme cold,” Rice says. “No, Weimaraners are not as tough as Labradors, but they can fetch a duck or goose from several hundred yards when necessary,” Rice says.

“Though we have only one litter of Weimaraners every once in a while, we do know of other breeders who may have pups for sale. However, we and they will sell dogs only to people who promise to hunt them,” Rice emphasizes. “After 29 years as a detective in the police department, I do know how to get the truth from someone in an interview, ” she adds with a big smile.

Weims in Water
Can a Weimaraner plunge into a frigid pond and make a 200-yard retrieve on a downed Canada goose?

“Of course,” Rice replied.

So we set it up and watched Rice’s dog work. As a NAVHDA Utility Prize I title holder, this dog had earned his degree in the test by doing a successful duck search after months of training to look for live ducks swimming in watery cover similar to where the big honker was now stashed under a pile of cattails.

As expected, the big male took a hand signal to fetch and made a blind retrieve. Though he had seldom retrieved a bird this size, he came swimming back with the 10-pound honker.

“Put a neoprene vest on a Weimaraner and, if trained to do so, most of them will fetch waterfowl in just about any situation,” Rice says.

Early introduction of a pup to water, regular practice in retrieving in a variety of places and lots of opportunities to fetch wild ducks and geese are the combination of ingredients Rice uses to make her Weimaraners dependable waterfowl hunters.

House or Kennel?
When Lori Kenner and her husband Jim decided they would like to have a gun dog, they wanted a breed with a calm temperament.

“We went to look at a litter of Weimaraners about 50 miles from our home and saw the pups’ mom and dad. Both the parents seemed pretty laid back and easy-going with no jumping up or barking when we came into the yard. Because of this impression, we took home two puppies instead of just one,” Kenner says.

“My two Weims have been kennel dogs by day and house dogs by night. This is a combination they taught me as best for all of us,” Kenner says of his 5-year-olds, Nick and Kit. “We wanted to raise both dogs to live in the kennel full-time, but as pups they stayed in the house most of the time because the weather here in Maine can be bitterly cold all spring. So, by the time summer came and they went into the outside kennel run, they decided that was okay during the day—but at night staying inside our house was better.

“From the beginning, both dogs were kept in the downstairs family room where they would lie on throw rugs in the evening to watch television with us then spend the night sleeping in individual crates,” Kenner says. “Though there was an initial period of adjustment to this arrangement, both dogs soon accepted this routine.”

In the outside kennel run, both of Kenner’s dogs were barkers at first, expressing their anxiety at being left alone during the day.

“Because we have neighbors close by, we used ‘bark collars’ to control the noise. Within a week, the problem was pretty much solved and both of them adjusted to the new situation.

“Though some lines of Weimaraners can be high-strung and hard to handle, many lines of this breed have calm temperaments that, with the right early training, can produce gun dogs that can be good house dogs and outside kennel dogs,” Kenner said. “And, in most cases, in the field they will be good gun dogs.”

Hunting and Beyond
A good cross section of today’s typical Weimaraners is represented by the three gun dogs owned by Scott Roker and Tresha Moorberg from Lincoln, Neb.

“We have one Weim out of a combination of field trial and show lines, another with good AKC Hunt Test scores along with some NAVHDA credentials, and a third from a rescue program that gave us little information about the dog’s background. All three of them are good hunters and great house dogs,” Roker says.

Like a lot of Weimaraner owners, Roker and Moorberg were attracted to the breed by its color and stately stature. “But we soon learned that there is more to these dogs than their handsome appearance,” Moorberg says. “All three of our Weims are solid hunters on pheasants and quail, which for us was a pleasant surprise because we were warned by some so-called dog experts that many lines of Weims had most of the hunting instinct bred out of them.”

Because Weimaraners are such high energy canines, Roker and Moorberg exercise their dogs for an hour every day. “A half-hour run in the morning and 20 minutes or so of dummy fetching in the late afternoon keeps the dogs in shape. But what really helps to improve their hunting abilities is to train them for AKC hunt tests and field trials and for NAVHDA testing,” Roker said.

“Preparing for and participating in these events between hunting seasons makes the dogs perform better during the hunting season. And though this probably applies to all hunting dogs, this practice seems to work out well for our Weimaraners.”

On Its Way
“Your best Weimaraners hunt as well as any good German shorthaired pointer,” someone in the pheasant hunting party remarked as one of Balog’s Weims came racing across a cut cornfield with a rooster pheasant it had tracked, pointed and was now retrieving.

After a few moments of thoughtful silence, Balog responded, “I’ll take that as a real compliment—and a testimony that the Gray Ghost can be well on its way to returning as a true hunter on the same level as any other popular versatile gun dog.”

But the free market economy can be a wonderful thing. Trainers let companies know that they didn’t want to hurt their dogs, and the units gradually got better. Today’s e-collars are an improvement by an order of magnitude over the versions of even 10 years ago, and some collars now allow an almost unlimited amount of finesse, delivering stimulation at levels so low they’re virtually undetectable, but easily capable of delivering a stout wake-up call when needed. As for the long running debate about the efficacy of these devices? It’s over, and Team E-Collar won. It would be tough to find a pro trainer of almost any breed who doesn’t use them. Used correctly, e-collars are safe, effective and humane.

On par with the improvement in e-collars are tracking systems, which have done more for the peace of mind of bird dog owners (especially owners of big-running pointers) than probably any other single thing in the long history of dog training. No longer do you have to wonder where your dog is; your GPS or tracking system will tell you.

Most of these units—e-collars and tracking systems alike—aren’t exactly cheap. But they’ll last for years, and the cost is money well spent if you plan on owning more than one dog in your lifetime. The following is a brief roundup of what’s out there.

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Dogtra Edge

A new addition to this reputable e-collar maker is the Dogtra Edge, which promises to make a very good product even better. Like most high-end collars, the Edge has a one-mile range, and can expand to four dogs with the addition of extra collars—all easily readable on a lighted LCD screen. It has nick and continuous modes, as well as a non-stimulating pager vibration mode, handy for those who want to call in their dogs without telegraphing their position. (Pheasant hunters, this is for you!) Naturally, the units are waterproof. Batteries are easily rechargeable, returning the unit to full power in two hours.

Both the receiver and transmitter are small, compact and tough, and there are more than enough levels of stimulation to handle even the hardest-headed retriever. Finally, the package comes with a hard-shell case and additional extendable contact points for dogs with thick, dense fur.

There’s no sight more classic than a pair of gun dogs working a gamebird with one dog pointing and the other backing.

The canines in this case were two Llewellin setters on a South Dakota pheasant hunt last fall. The two dogs stood frozen with heads and tails high in a picture-perfect pose. As one of the hunters walked in to flush the pointed bird, two hens and one rooster rocketed out of the prairie grass. One well-placed shot brought down the long-tailed ringneck and one dog ran out, picked up and brought it in.

“You know, one of the best parts about hunting over these Llewellins,” one of the hunters later said, “is that they hunt ‘with’ us, rather than us hunting ‘for’ them out in the field. Compared to some other kinds of setters I’ve hunted over, Llewellins tend to stay close to the gun, check in with the hunters and generally can be seen nearby in open country or easily found when hidden in heavy cover.”

These dogs are amiable partners that want to find birds for their human hunters rather than just for themselves, and this was made clear after spending three days with the Llewellins. Though this team-player factor is one of the main features of Llewellins, this type of English setter is also praised for numerous other key qualities.

“Look in any book on gun dogs in general or read in particular about these dogs as described on websites or in magazines and you will see them portrayed as having great noses, an intense prey drive, a natural search pattern and a cooperative temperament,” says Dennis Dorfman, a pheasant and prairie grouse hunter from Colorado who has owned Llewellins for more than 30 years.

“Most of my dogs, compared to other types of English setters, are a little smaller with males in the 40- to 50-pound range and females at 35 to 45 pounds,” Dorfman says. “All of them are fast in the field with above-average stamina and a high level of tolerance for warm-to-hot temperatures. And most of my dogs have been natural retrievers. I do, however, personally take them through a trained retrieve course, just to be sure they fetch anything I shoot down and send them for.”

Dorfman doesn’t breed his dogs, but instead takes his time searching for the right lines of Llewellins to buy.

Keeping Close
For 30-some years, Vern Austin has driven from his home in Decatur, Ark., to hunt bobwhite quail in western Texas.

“During that time my family, my friends and I have taken dozens of bird dogs into the heavy-duty Texas cover. Of all the kinds of pointers and setters that have made these trips, Llewellins have been the best overall at hunting close, finding birds and not getting lost in the jungle of vegetation out there,” Austin says.

Close-working setters are the norm in this breed.

“I won’t say our Llewellins never get lost, but I will say when they do lose contact with us, they are the breed most likely to find their way back to where we are,” Austin says. “It’s a genetic thing, I guess, for them to stay in touch and keep close to the gun.”

After years of looking for lost pointers that may not come back all day or all week, he says he can usually count on the Llewellins to come in to a voice call or whistle. With the assistance of an e-collar, Austin says Llewellins are the dogs most likely to be found when the beeper goes off in point mode—and the most likely to check in when Austin signals them in with multiple beeps.

Dead Bird Hunters
When Rod Colson hunted ruffed grouse and woodcock in the Wisconsin woods, dead and wounded birds that fell in heavy cover were usually found by his hunting partner’s German wirehaired pointer.

“My two-year-old Llewellin, Luke, would sort of stand and watch as Bud the wirehair would rip up the cover looking for any dead birds,” Colson recollects. “I thought that maybe Llewellins just didn’t have any dead-bird search in them.”

But one day during a lunch break, Colson’s mind started to change about Luke’s hunt for dead game. His hunting buddy took three freshly killed ruffed grouse and two woodcock, tossed them into a big patch of brambles, and led Luke into the gnarly cover.

“Hunt dead,” he commanded as he took Luke up close to the first bird, which the dog found after a short time. Much petting and praise followed finding that first bird and the rest of them in the thick cover.

From that day on, Colson worked his Llewellin in the “hunt dead” exercise. He used bird carcasses kept in the freezer to do at-home training from January through September so that by October, Luke’s nose would drop to the ground and immediately search for dead game with the cue of “dead bird.”

“My conclusion is that Llewellins are team players as good at finding dead game as any other bird dog if they are taught to do so,” Colson says.

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Training Tips
“All three of the Llewellins my family has were trained by my son and me,” says Chuck Hill from Hannibal, Mo. “With Ellie, our first dog, we used as our guide a couple of basic gun dog training books and one DVD on the subject. Ellie turned out to be a good quail dog despite a few mistakes we made along the way—specifically in our failure to develop her retrieving skills.”

That was a mistake they corrected with their next two Llewellins, as they encouraged them as pups to fetch quail wings, dummies and then freshly killed pigeons. At about nine months, they began a gentle trained-retrieve course using an ear pinch. As a result, when the dogs were about a year old, they eagerly fetched up shot training pigeons or wild quail, Hill said.

“Most Llewellins we’ve had were pretty quick to mature and were ready for all basic training while still puppies under a year old. In a majority of cases, in fact, pups born in January to April would be pretty well yard trained in five or six months so they could go on a pheasant, grouse or quail hunt by October to December,” reports Brad Devon of Rochester, N.Y.

Still, because some lines of Llewellins seem to be a little sensitive when introduced to live birds and gunfire, Devon says he starts out with dead pigeons that pups can pick up, carry and play with until they seem comfortable with feathers. Then he moves on to wing-locked live pigeons that pups can chase to develop their enthusiasm for the real thing.

“When the pups are busy with the live birds, we shoot a pistol at 100 yards or so, then slowly work the gun sounds in closer over a seven- to 10-day period, depending on how individual pups react to the experience,” he says.

Setter Selection
Many setters are advertised as Llewellins, but not all of them are pure Llewellins; instead, they may be just plain setters with some Llewellin blood mixed into their breeding, according to Gary Wente, a Llewellin owner and hunter from Oklahoma City, Okla.

As a member of the North American Llewellin Breeders Association, Wente emphasizes the association’s policy that purebred Llewellins must be registered in the Field Dog Stud Book with DNA documentation as proof of their genetic purity. Anyone who buys one of these dogs and wants the real thing should be sure to look for the FDSB certification, Wente notes.

“All breeders in our association have this certifiable authenticity. Within the association, however, there are at least five lines of Llewellins, each with its own special features. So finding a line with specialized characteristics that fit a buyer’s needs is possible with some homework,” Wente says.

To see pure Llewellins at work in the field, look at the www.nalba.org website for breeders who are scattered across North America. Check with each kennel for available puppies, started dogs or finished dogs.

But Wente warns about breeders who give exaggerated sales pitches about their own lines while making negative attacks on others. “Though this is often done in private conversations, some breeders make these claims and mount these criticisms on their websites. Watch out when you hear or see this sort of thing,” Wente says.

“Llewellins love being house dogs but can tolerate being outdoor kennel dogs,” says Carol Christianson, a Llewellin owner-breeder-hunter for 11 years. “In our home, our young dogs are restricted to the kitchen and family room and kept off the furniture. At night we put them in crates just to cut down on the temptation to wander and get into trouble. Our two older dogs, however, will stay the night on their beds in the kitchen.”

Compared to some other English setters and many English pointers, Llewellins seem to have a naturally calmer temperament that makes them more willing to be around people and to please them, Christianson says—“all of which makes them better house and kennel dogs,” she adds.

Close By
“Tanner is out of his kennel and has been gone for an hour,” Chuck Wilson’s daughter told her dad when he came home from work one afternoon. A wave of panic swept over him. Tanner was Wilson’s field trial champion Llewellin setter, the central stud in his breeding program, his main gun dog used for Texas quail hunts all season, and the family’s favorite house pet.

When Wilson went to get his cell phone to alert the neighbors to a dog running loose, he walked out into the back yard. There was Tanner calmly sleeping at the top of the porch steps.

As the dog followed him back to the kennel, Wilson noted, “This is what I like about Llewellins. They want to stay close most all the time. They are team players.”

You might say, “Those tests look so easy I don’t see the benefit; seems like a waste of time…” I wouldn’t recommend saying that to someone who’s spent weeks of preparation, experienced the excitement and understands the value of puppy tests. I’m sure they’d be quick to tell how thrilling the experience was and how much fun they’ve had in preparation, working with other club members, and how much they and their dog had gained in the process.

So for those of you thinking about a new pup or who have one sleeping on your lap right now, read on. Hopefully we’ll spark an interest, one that very well could last a lifetime. Believe me, hunt tests for young dogs are great options for you and your pup.

Beyond the excitement and personal gains of new friends and a better appreciation for your pup’s inherited abilities, puppy tests provide solid benefits to serious breeders, breed clubs and anyone planning to develop a good hunting partner, or hoping to continue onto higher level competition or testing. These tests offer a great venue for positive exposure of pups in developing a solid, self-confident foundation for advanced training.

No matter the breed or type of puppy you have—flusher, pointer, versatile or retriever—there are programs designed for your needs. In each segment there are tests that have been developed over time to provide well-thought-out, fair and consistent standards for the evaluation of the key attributes and abilities required to become successful hunting dogs. These tests are normally designed with young dogs from around 6 to 16 months old.

For retrieving breeds there is the AKC’s retriever hunt test program and the UKC’s Hunting Retriever Club program. Pointing breeds can take part in AKC’s pointing breed hunt test program. The AKC’s spaniel hunt tests are available for flushing breeds.

For the versatile breeds there is the North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association (NAVHDA) hunt tests. By “versatile breeds” we are referring to those breeds originating in Europe, intended for hunting both upland birds and waterfowl. Please check out each club’s website for more information on each program.

By now, I’m sure you’ve gathered that I’m a strong advocate of puppy tests. As a matter of fact I’m in favor of test programs in general, from beginning to end, all the way through the more advanced tests. My point is, the more time you spend with your dog throughout the year, the better hunting team you’ll be when bird season rolls around.

Most testing organizations begin training or test days by gathering to introduce the test officials and go over the general plans for the day.

For newbies and old-timers alike, these programs are a great way to meet folks with common interests and learn more about the care, exercising and training of gun dogs. With the added benefit of extending your hunting season into a year-round sport, what could be better?

In hunt tests you’re not competing with other folks and their dogs, so everyone can qualify. Your pup is evaluated during simulated hunting scenarios by well-trained judges according to how he measures up to well-established standards. It’s great fun. We help each other and we also cheer for each other, which makes this a great family activity as well.

On behalf of each of the clubs mentioned, I invite you to check their websites for event schedules and to locate a club or chapter. Call the clubs for details on meetings and training days in your area and get involved.

Don’t worry about being a stranger; all clubs are on the watch for new faces and are quick to make you feel welcome…in other words, they’ll put you to work. But you’ll not be sorry, so I recommend you take the time to see what it’s about.

• Call the club contact to let them know you’re interested in visiting a meeting or training day.

• Be sure you have good directions, your Garmin GPS and a contact’s cell number. Good training or test sites are usually off the beaten path, so be prepared for the back roads.

• Be sure you have a safe, comfortable kennel in your vehicle for your pup, a standard collar, a short lead and a long lead or check-rope.

• When you first arrive make a point to locate your contact and introduce yourself, leaving your pup in the kennel.

• After meeting key people, ask about an exercise area where you can air your pup without interfering with others.

• Once you’ve aired your dog, return it to the kennel and make sure of shade and ventilation, then check back in with the folks to see what’s next.

From this point on I’m sure the day’s activity will fall into place, as you’ve shown genuine interest, “dog ethics” and respect for others, and that you are prepared with some of the basic training tools.

Please come out and join us. Even if you have an older dog and a bunch of experience, you’ll love these hunt test programs, not to mention the company of other dog enthusiasts. Beyond the puppy ability tests there are advanced levels, each a little more demanding and fitting for your dog.

I was proud of my black Lab, Kona, for performing well, but chalked it up to luck and Roseland’s compliment to that of a savvy businessman. It wasn’t until a year later when Eric Johannsen of Johannsen Farms Outfitting in nearby Tolstoy, a property with literally thousands of wild birds, repeated the praise nearly verbatim that I began to wonder not what my dog had done well, but what many people were lacking in their training and hunting habits that left them so woefully unprepared for an encounter with numerous birds.

More important than any kudos your dog could receive, is making the most of a trip to the epicenter of hunting for your chosen species of upland bird—be that South Dakota for pheasants, south Texas for quail or Wisconsin for grouse. The memory you return with can be that of opportunities capitalized upon or lost. It all boils down to how your dog performs when his training literally runs headlong into his genetic instincts.

Even if you never plan to visit a destination famous for record hatch and harvest statistics, a dog that remains under control when faced with the sensory overload that accompanies the excitement of the hunt, numerous birds and multiple gunshots can pay huge dividends. For a dog that’s used to tracking a single pheasant or satellite quail, but suddenly finds itself hot on the trail of a large covey’s worth of birds, it could mean the difference between putting two birds in the bag, or watching as they flush out of range and disappear over the horizon—with your dog in hot pursuit.

Close Encounters
When a dog, even one trained to a high level in the controlled environment of a field trial or test, encounters a large number of birds on a hunt, its mind often becomes conflicted. Nature becomes pitted against nurture and the sheer excitement of massive amounts of fresh scent, perhaps even with birds in such close proximity as to allow the dog to see and hear them, often causes the dog to “blow up,” or resort to a state of hunting strictly by instinct and purely for self-gratifying reasons.

You will see the dog begin to work the ground very quickly; first taking one scent trail and then another. He becomes frantic in his attempt to process and decipher all the messages he’s receiving from the multitude of interlaced ground and airborne trails.

“There’s so much scent around that a dog can’t concentrate on one particular trail to follow; it’s like being in a blender,” said Tom Dokken of Dokken’s Oak Ridge Kennels in Northfield, Minn.

As the confusion progresses, a dog begins to rely less and less upon you and prior training and more and more upon instinct to reach his ultimate goal: bird contact. As the dog mentally devolves, the handler experiences a loss of control; basic training tenets like range and backing go out the window as the dog starts chasing and disregarding commands.

“The longer a dog is allowed to work in a frantic state of mind, the more correct and permissible he thinks it is,” said Dan Hosford, of Dan Hosford Training in Spokane, Wash. “It’s something that magnifies very, very rapidly.”

On the Hunt
Once the downward spiral begins, it becomes a self-rewarding behavior for the dog. While in a frantic state of mind he’s encountering more and more bird scent, which training and genetics have honed to an extreme desire. He inches evercloser to his goal of bird contact, regardless of your involvement.

To stop the cycle, you have to short-circuit the dog’s frenzied mind and bring him back under control. You do this simply by stopping the dog for a few moments.

“The ability to cue a dog to stop is invaluable. Not only can you get things shut down before they escalate out of control, but it is also similar to rebooting your dog’s computer,” said Ronnie Smith, who trains bird dogs at his kennel in Oklahoma through the spring and summer and guides hunters in quail-rich south Texas during hunting season. “When things come unraveled, rebooting that computer allows your dog to catch his breath, regain his senses and compose himself.”

Stopping the dog and having it stand, if it’s a pointer, or sit, if it’s a flushing breed, is a tactic echoed by Hosford. “When you see that dog begin to become frantic, you have to stop him as soon as possible,” he said. “That allows him to start regaining his focus. His mind stops spinning about the bird scent and his focus returns to the handler.”

Once the dog stops, leave him at a standstill as you calmly walk to him. Give him a few seconds to regain his composure; wait until the “crazed” look in his eye fades away and he begins to display more relaxed body language before releasing him.

If your dog becomes frantic again, repeat the process, but instead of releasing him after a few moments, make him heel for a while as you walk through the field. The return to basic obedience reinforces the standards and expectations despite the excitement of the setting.

In fact, if your dog can’t handle the stimulation or just isn’t quite ready, heeling allows him, especially a retriever, to gain structured experience.

“Keep it simple in a high stimulus situation by giving the dog tasks that aren’t as complex. Heeling through a field while other dogs work reduces the complexity and allows you to keep him under control,” said retriever trainer Mike Stewart of Wildrose Kennels in Oxford, Miss. Stewart added that acting as a blocker is another role that allows a dog to participate in the hunt—including making retrieves—but with fewer intricacies required.

Problems, Solutions
Giving your dog the proper foundation through training experiences can help reduce the effect and duration of sensory overload, even if it can’t eliminate it completely. But if training is the answer, it is also part of the problem for many people and their dogs.

While it’s impossible to replicate the excitement of a hunt, especially one involving numerous wild birds, many amateurs compound the problem by training in too sterile or too convoluted a manner and don’t provide transition experience.

Too sterile: To teach our dogs various concepts, we use single birds in very controlled circumstances. It’s the best way to train a new concept, but when the dog progresses and has learned what’s required, that sterile scenario becomes a hindrance.

“People always train in the same area and the dog learns to memorize it and the routine. He gets confident and, while confidence is important, it makes it easier and allows him to pick up on cues and know what’s going to happen,” said Hosford. “Then when he gets into a new field and encounters big groups of birds he doesn’t know how to behave or what to do.”

The solution: Once your dog has a lesson mastered, don’t keep repeating the scenario over and over. Challenge his understanding of the basic concept by changing locations, using more and more live birds and adding gunshots and other dogs to the scenario.

Too convoluted: Increasing the complexity and stimulus of a training session too quickly will cause your dog to come unhinged. This makes it impossible for him to learn the fundamental concept of a lesson and completely undermines your control. It can also create a misconception for the dog of acceptable behavior in confusing situations.

The number of birds taken in a hotspot like South Dakota can challenge any dog's manners.

“When you move a dog too fast by making a lesson too complex and adding too much stimulus at the same time, they’re going to blow up,” said Stewart. “You have to successfully complete a task several times in several different locations before it starts to become a habit. Then you can begin to add complexity and stimulus, but you have to introduce those separately.”

The solution: Break your training sessions down and be cognizant of the pressures placed upon your dog. Stewart, who runs multiple repetitions in a single session, likes to successfully complete five sessions in five different locations before adding first complexity (such as significantly lengthening a scent trail) and then stimulus (such as firing blank shots while the dog is following the scent trail).

Transition training: While each training session should be planned and balanced with specific lessons in mind, they are individual concepts that slowly build upon one another to create a foundation that teaches your dog how to behave and react under controlled circumstances.

Transition training, on the other hand, takes all of those learned skills of ever-increasing complexity and stimulus and forces the dog to choose which one to use and when. It’s a realistic hunting scenario for the dog, but without the pressure on you of hunting wild birds with friends. You can remain in control, enforce standards and expectations, and even turn the situation into a training session.

The solution: When you believe your dog is ready for the field, take him to a hunting preserve. Pay to have birds released and place them in bunches to heavily scent an area. This isn’t about shooting the birds, it’s about maintaining control of your dog and teaching him to stay focused in the face of extreme temptation.

Put your training to use and if needed, stop your dog until his focus returns and he understands that all the same rules apply despite the overwhelming amount of scent.