“Happiness Is a Warm Puppy” is a book written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. It was first published in 1962 and has since been re-published several times.
Anyone who has ever bought a puppy will agree with this simplest, but truest, of notions.
That was the title of the half-hour talk given by Ronnie and Susanna Smith of Ronnie Smith Kennels at the recently held Pheasant Fest in downtown Minneapolis. Because Betsy and I have usually been somewhere in the South at this time of year, we’d never been to this exhibition sponsored by Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever. But feeling a touch of cabin fever and being intrigued by this talk, we decided to venture out and hear what they had to say.
What we heard was a short course on a way of training that was new for the Smith’s. The basic premise is to give the dog the freedom to decide how to act when it smells a bird.
After planting a pigeon in a launcher, lead the dog on a check cord, directing it to the area downwind of the bird. When the dog scents the bird, let it decide how to act instead of physically stopping it. If the dog points the bird, praise it. If the dog gets too close, launch the bird and stop the chase.
While this method is new to the Smith’s, it’s not new to me.
I’ve used it for the past 20 years and call it the Natural Way. I first became familiar with the basics when I went to Bill Gibbon’s place in Arizona to learn the West/Gibbons Method. Their method was vastly different from how most handlers trained.
Over time, I’ve tweaked and modified the technique and now find it to be, by far, the best way to train steadiness. The results are eye opening. The dog is bold around birds. It exudes confidence. And it points birds independently, without being micro-managed by its handler.
For Ronnie and Susanna, whose training method had been based on controlling the dog around birds, this is a fundamentally different approach. But, as Ronnie said, times and dogs change. Kudos to them for recognizing the need to modify their method.
A reward for our efforts was a stop at Brit’s Pub, which was a short walk from Pheasant Fest. The Fuller’s ESB on tap is Betsy’s favorite beer and was perfect with an order of fish and chips.
P.S. Please stay tuned for a future post featuring more details about my Natural Way of steadiness training.