As I’ve mentioned many times before, I’ve spent most of my summer days, at least the last twenty or so years’ worth, training flushers alongside my friend Danny Lussen in New York’s Hudson Valley. Part of what I love about my summer days is the routine. Reliably, we run dogs through similar drills and similar exercises in the same well-used training field, and we see dogs from a lineage of breedings and kennels that we have been acquainted with for decades. Each day has a reliable rhythm that starts with a cup of gas station coffee and progresses to mid-morning donuts. A cast of friends and dog owners trickle in each day to watch or work their own dogs, and they are forced to listen to me and Danny’s tall tales, and no small amount of good-natured ridicule over their poor handling or missteps in the training process. It’s a seasonal pattern I have come to rely on.

The one notable change, however, that seems more and more evident each year, is the presence of women in these sessions. It has been wonderful to watch as more and more women enter the dog space to handle and train their own dogs, and to find great success in the hunt fields or the trial/ hunt test space. Now, I know that gender is a delicate topic, and I know too that I may well put some readers off by making generalizations about women in the field, but in this installment of the Flush column I plan to kindly generalize, regardless. My motivation in doing so is to celebrate the increasing presence of women in the flushing dog training space, and the specific attributes they bring to the game.

Women Bring Unique Differences to Training

There have, of course, always been women involved with working gun dogs. I recall fondly the sage mentorship and counsel I received from Ruth Greening, whom I met in 1967. Ruth was, like me, a native of upstate New York who took great pride in her working springers. She produced several field champions.

On the opposite coast, California’s Janet Christensen was a veterinarian, spaniel breeder, and trialer who won three National Championships with three different dogs, also in the late 60’s. I knew these women and admired their way with spaniels. But, at least in my view, the decades that followed saw fewer and fewer women in the training and trialing space, and also in the hunting fields. For many years, the clients I dealt with as a professional trainer were almost exclusively men, as were the folks that I took out on guided hunts. Moreover, I found consistently as I tried to train these men to be trainers themselves, or handlers at least, that there was always an element of distrust, or maybe a level of resistance toward taking advice. I would give some suggestion, or correct some handling missteps, and the response was reliably, “I know, but...”.

Now, I don’t mean to imply that all men struggled to take training advice, or that all men pushed back, nor am I unwilling to assume that something in my communication or manner may have caused the knee-jerk resistance. But, in the past ten years or so, as more and more women have become involved with flushers as amateur trainers and handlers, I have noted some unique differences between men and women as students of flushing dog training. So, indulge my generalizations.

What I have noticed is that women in the field are willing to listen, to watch, and to absorb information in a unique way. For whatever reason, rather than push back or assert their own agenda/opinion, women seem more inclined to trust the process or the advice of the trainer, at least until they have a proven reason not to. They also seem willing to focus on the process more than the outcome. The beauty of this approach is that the process involves many small steps which, when attended to, result in a desirable outcome. The devil is in the details after all, and women seem good at noticing the small ones. In my experience, they note the subtle changes in a dog’s body language, or the way in which my tone or volume can result in a significant change in the dog’s behavior. I have also noticed that many of the women who I have seen succeed with flushing dogs come from a background that involved horses. I would go so far as to say that communication with horses translates well into the dog space, so a person with horse experience generally takes pretty well to dog training. I don’t know the statistics on horseback riding in the U.S. these days, but far more of the women than the men I know have some background in riding.

Maternal Instincts

I have also witnessed first-hand that puppies generally respond much better to women than men. I don’t know whether this stems from some awareness of a maternal connection, or whether women just approach puppies in a quieter, gentler fashion. The reasons are somewhat irrelevant; the fact is that were I to have a kennel again, or were I in the business of socializing puppies, I’d rely on a woman to do the bulk of this delicate, and terribly important work.

In general, I have found that women have been entering shooting sports, hunting particularly, at a great rate over the last decade or so. I see often that dogs are the gateway mechanism by which women become hunters. In this historically male-dominated hunting space, I regularly saw men claiming ownership of the experience: the guns, the dogs, the hunt club memberships... those all belonged to the men. But as the women developed stronger bonds with those dogs, they became increasingly interested in carrying that bond into the dog’s workplace, i.e. the field. So, shooting, hunting, and all that goes with it became important and desirable skills to learn, and in the process, a true passion was born. I’ve seen it time and time again, and wonderfully, I have also seen those wome genuinely mean it when they say, “I really hunt just because I love to watch the dogs work.” I’d argue that there are far fewer game hogs or greedy sports among women than men.

Now, I will likely get eviscerated for the generalizations I’ve made above, and maybe I deserve it. But nonetheless, I for one have been incredibly impressed with the growing presence of women in the flushing dog space, and the skill and aptitude they bring to training and trialing. I would advise all the men reading this piece to take note: Next time you see a woman in the field, watch her carefully and watch how her dog responds. I’d be surprised if you don’t learn a thing or two that will serve you, and your flushing dog too. On that note, here’s to more women in the field!