Rookies should be staunched and "whoa" trained before their first hunting season.

Now then, how do we celebrate a pointing or flushing dog's first hunt? Well, we show the pup off to five or six of our closest and dearest friends, each packing a self-loading 12-gauge (after all, it is Opening Day). All guns salute the first birds flushed and, before the first dead bird is all the way back to hand, everyone whose gun is not empty blazes away at late risers

While birds are still raining from the sky, Buster's handler is blowing his whistle and frantically yelling for the pup to "hunt dead." Seems as though we can resist anything but temptation when it comes to showing off and excessive shooting during the first month or two of a pup's first season. But once again, patience is what is really called for here, not the scenario just described.

You take one shot, drop one bird and there is no confusion on the pup's part. He's focused on point, flush, shot and hunt dead. His ears are not ringing and he is fired up to do it all again. Pick him up before he's had enough and he will turn inside out next time he sees you with a shotgun.

One gun and two people are all it takes to start a pup off right. One person handles the dog, which should have already been staunched and whoa trained, perhaps even steadied to wing and shot if that is the game plan. So, for a first field adventure little or no talking will be required. It is easy to remember this if you pretend the pup is on point 100 yards out in front of you. The gunner should flush and shoot (once) when you tell him the time is right and it is so much better if the pup can see the flight and mark the fall.

Obviously, the object of this entire exercise is for pup to associate the shot with the snootful of scent and getting a dead bird in his mouth as the grand finale. It is almost guaranteed to fail with a truckload of wingshooters in the act, along with a lot of shouting and whistle blowing.

Long before opening day most properly coached gun dogs have had obedience training and been exposed to point, flush, shoot, hunt dead or sit, mark, direction and fetch. But, if this pre-season experience has been sparse, it is all the more important to take it slow and easy on opening day and beyond.

Way back, when the world was still warm to the touch and I was a young bird hunter and waterfowler, our gun dogs were mostly trained under fire during the hunting season. It was comparatively easy to develop outstanding young bird dogs when you could kill several hundred wild birds over each of them in their first season. And waterfowl? Well, let's just say that the pups stayed wet all season long.