Ambassador Posts

Wow– it seems everywhere I go, folks have puppies! And, they’re anxious for training advice.  Here’s advice that every puppy owner can use.  It’s about making your training more widely applicable.  In the gun dog training business, this is often referred to as generalizing commands and instruction. One example would be the use of a […]

How good is your pointing grouse dog?  Fair? Good?  Outstanding?  What is the standard you use to judge your dog?  Your author has had the good fortune to watch and shoot over many pointing breed grouse dogs.  Those include English setter, English pointer, German shorthaired pointer, pointing griffon, Brittany and many more.  The training of

In last month’s column, we reviewed how my wife and I decided to breed our female German shorthaired pointer, the process of artificial insemination and selecting buyers for our litter.  We finished the column explaining that, as litter owners, we had first pick.  I promised that I would reveal, in this column, the puppy we

My wife, Susan, and I like to have a new puppy come into the family approximately every five years.  That formula ensures that we always have a dog at the top of their game.  At the present time, we have a 10 ½ year old male (Dillon) and a five year old female (Dena).   About

Introducing a puppy to water is an important step in the gun dog training process.  It’s especially important if we want our dogs to retrieve from the water.  And, a very important second reason is for dogs to voluntarily enter water if they’re being worked in warm weather. Before water introduction, a pup should have

One of the most frequent questions I’m asked is how to control the range of my bird dog.  It’s a good question because we want dogs that hunt for us rather than us hunting for the dog.  And, have you ever hunted with someone who is constantly calling their dog?  Rather annoying, right? The range

Unlike the advice the soothsayer gave Caesar to Beware the Ides of March and stay home, in modern times, the bird dog owner in Northern states, from Minnesota to Maine, should welcome the month of March.  Weather permitting, March means the return of the American woodcock from their wintering grounds in the Southern United States. 

Sporting dogs are truly canine athletes.  These canine athletes require physical and mental stimulation throughout the year.  If you live in the South, this is easy to accomplish simply through hunting; with many bird seasons going through February.  However, if you live in the North and deal with snow all winter long, you need to

Picking a puppy is a gut-wrenching exercise for many hunters.  It’s a ten to twelve-year commitment and you don’t want to get it wrong.  For this article, we’ll assume you already know the breed you would like; however, picking a breeder, then a litter and then the puppy in that litter is the challenge. There

If you’re too busy to train, too busy to buy a pup and place it with a professional trainer or simply want to bypass the entire puppy and training stages, then buying a finished dog is for you. That advice may sound simple but how does one go about doing this?  This is an important