Consistency and moderation in your training efforts will ultimately produce the desired results.

Gun dog owners and trainers can learn a lot from trainers of breeds other than our own. When visiting in-laws I spent a lot of time training with a fantastic amateur trainer in North Carolina.

One afternoon we were discussing gun dogs prior to hosing the runs down after feeding his English setters.

"I punish my dogs the same way I punished my children when they were growing up," said Bob Lee, "only as much as necessary to get the job done."

Bird dog enthusiasts from the Carolinas will recognize Lee's name. Under his Pine Cone kennel name he was for years one of the top amateur pointing dog trainers and handlers in quail trials for walking gun dogs. Lee hunted his dogs seriously, especially earlier in his career. What Bob Lee does not know about sporting dogs is unnecessary to know.

I found Lee's statement on punishing dogs interesting, and much at odds with many trainers of his age and time in the sporting dog world; Lee is now in his mid-80s, and has slowed training considerably. But into his 70s, Lee walked three, one-hour championship trial heats in a day, running two of his own dogs and one belonging to an injured friend.

I watched and helped (in very small ways--planting birds, gunning, etc.) Bob Lee train dogs for about 15 years, and his actions regarding punishing or "correcting" dogs was just as he said--minimal. Instead of heavy-handed corrections, Lee relied on patience, consistency, repetition and plenty of bird contact.

Watching him helped me moderate the number and intensity of my corrections.

Coming from a background of competitive football and wrestling at a time when Vince Lombardi's training philosophy ruled sports, I tended to accept and use Lombardi's hard-nosed philosophy in dog training--for a while.

Trained by myself (I followed a book), my first two English springers did pretty well, though they were certainly not flawless. Corrections at the time were moderate, with a lot of exposure to wild birds doing much of the work.

Later I became actively involved with dog trainers in the Valley Forge Field Trial Association. That association became a main focus of my life, and taught me what I know about dogs. It put me in touch with people who knew dogs as well as anyone in the country, and opportunities denied the average hunter.

A couple of old-timers, and some younger members, too, were pretty tough on their dogs and demanded, if not perfection, something pretty darn close to it. In fairness to them, they were competing in the big leagues where perfection, or near perfection, was necessary to win.

The rigid, physical aspect of training correlated with my personal background, so anyone passing those harsh dog training methods on to me was working with pretty fertile, receptive soil.

Some old-time professional dog trainers (some of whom are still living) used some pretty harsh correction methods, including slingshots; air/BB guns; flushing whips; a short, heavy lead; bird shot from a shotgun or hand-gun; misused/abused electronic collars, a booted foot, a fist and a dog being picked up and thrown on its back.

Pros often had dogs they trained and ran removed from their kennels if they were not winning field trials. The pros, in turn, did everything within their power–including some pretty harsh training methods–to ensure dogs remained with the pro. As late as the mid- to late 1990s I still saw some of the same harsh correction methods described above being used.