Houston’s Blackjack and CH Erin’s Kentucky Gambler.
Frank LaNasa and I spent a few days in late December with Sean Derrig of Erin Kennels. Sean is a serious, very successful amateur all-age field trialer who also holds his own in open competition. Last year, he qualified and ran four dogs in the National Championship.
Sean flushes BIG covey for CH Erin’s Whiskey River. (Click to enlarge.)
Sean breeds, trains and develops his pointers at his farm near Tiskilwa, Illinois. He has 500 acres of land with about 220 acres groomed for running dogs. These are the most beautifully and intensely managed grounds I’ve ever seen. We worked dogs all day long and every brace had multiple finds on large coveys of good flying bobwhite quail.
It was exciting to see Sean’s string in action including CH Erin’s Stony River, CH Erin’s Whisky River, CH Erin’s Bad River, CH Erin’s Kentucky Gambler and Erin’s Braveheart. Frank worked his champion females, CH Homemade and CH Lil Miss Sunshine, as well as Houston’s Blackjack and True Confidence.
Dog training—whether as passion or profession—is a continual learning experience. One of the best ways to learn is to hang around experts. I was fortunate enough to spend some time recently in Arizona with Bill Gibbons.
Bill Gibbons
Bill has been training dogs for more than 39 years and is widely renowned and admired. He first trained and handled vizslas on the field trial circuit for 15 years and then worked with pointers and setters for another 10 years. He now trains dogs for bird hunters and field trial competitors.
Over the years, I’ve researched many different training techniques and styles. Even though Bill’s philosophy is quite different from the way most bird dogs are trained, it definitely resonates with me.
Central to Bill’s philosophy is the belief that a bird dog learns best from the birds themselves. He trains using dog psychology and creates situations that allow the dog to make its own decisions about how to act around birds. Bill uses a short check line, pinch collar and an ecollar to communicate to the dog.
Bill flushing a carded pigeon while two dogs honor
Following are some quick observations.
• All of Bill’s training takes place on the ground in areas where birds are present. He never does traditional yard training.
• Bill doesn’t have mechanical bird releasers. He uses wild-caught pigeons that are attached by a short piece of yarn to a cardboard square. The pigeon can fly at will but not very far because of the cardboard. In the desert, the pigeons are spooky and take flight as soon as a dog gets near.
• Bill trains daily with an ad-hoc group of amateur trainers and dog owners. At any time, there might be three or more dogs working in the field at the same time.
• He never talks to the dog and instead lets it learn from the birds. (I never heard him say “Whoa.”) A soft stroke and a pat on the side shows the dog it did well.
November is usually reserved for developing puppies. And this year, do we have puppies!
We have nine from our two line-bred-Houston litters that were born in June. Five puppies are out of our repeat breeding of Blue Shaquille to Houston’s Belle’s Choice and four are from Northwoods Chardonnay and Houston’s Blackjack.
It is so much fun to turn them loose and work them on quail and grouse. It is even better now to see them hunt hard, point and back.
Heading for grouse cover!
Point, back, back, back, back.
Jeter (Shaq x Choice)
Morris (Blackjack x Chardonnay), Maggie and Sue (Shaq x Choice)
Common sense should tell us that the best and most efficient way to get a dog with the inherited ability to find and point ruffed grouse would be to get one from a line of proven grouse dogs. But common sense, often, is not so common. People mistakenly believe that any well-bred bird dog will make a grouse dog, even if none of the dogs in the pedigree have ever hunted, much less pointed, a grouse. While some could develop into fine grouse dogs, the odds don’t favor them.
What are the genetic qualities of a grouse dog?
To start:
• strong hunting instincts
• above average intelligence
• right amount of point
Also important, though:
• physical strength and stamina
• desire to hunt in heavy, punishing cover
• good hearing and eyesight
Finally, a little fine-tuning:
• the instinct to range in a manner that effectively covers ground and yet stays in contact with the hunter
• scenting ability that allows accurate location of a bird while the dog is moving through the woods at a fast pace
• capability to follow a running bird, possibly for hundreds of yards, and get it pointed
So, you bought a puppy prospect with the right genes; now the work begins.
It will take about three seasons of consistent exposure for that prospect to develop into a grouse dog. Consider a good year when one could average three grouse flushes per hour. For a hunter walking at 2 mph, that’s about 1.5 grouse per mile. If you hunt four hours per day for 10 days, you will have walked 80 miles to flush 120 grouse. (4 hours x 10 days = 40 hours. 40 hours x 2 mph = 80 miles. 80 miles x 1.5 = 120 grouse).
After three seasons you’ll have walked about 240 miles!
Bottom line? Buy a puppy from a line of proven grouse dogs and buy two pair of good boots. Find hunting spots with good grouse habitat. Turn your dog loose and start walking.
By the time both pairs of boots are worn out, you’ll have a grouse dog!
There is something about handling a bird dog from the back of a horse across seemingly endless grasslands that is very appealing. Here are photos Ben McKean shot this summer. Enjoy!
Nice way to end the day.
Point!
Our prairie camp.
Jerry, Prancer and trusty horse, Captain.
Young Northwoods Parmigiano learns from veteran Merimac’s Adda Girl.
Three-year-old Ridge Creek Cody, a setter male co-bred by Paul Hauge and Northwoods Bird Dogs, won Runner-up in the All America Open Shooting Dog Championship. The trial was held near Carson, North Dakota, and was run on native pheasants and sharp-tailed grouse.
In our gun dog foundation training, we use pigeons in launchers to teach dogs about birds and how to act around them. We need control of the bird to create the necessary training situations. That control gives us better timing and helps instill the desired behavior.
But since the goal is not to have the best pigeon dogs around, we eventually need to transition to wild birds.
While a dog may be finished on pigeons in two or three months, it will take at least that long and much more effort to finish it on wild birds. There are three reasons.
We lose the ability to control the bird.
This creates a whole new set of conditions for us. Since we don’t know when or how the bird will flush, we have to focus intently on everything going on to react and to properly correct the dog.
The level of distraction is much higher.
The locations and terrain are different. The dog is more excited and less focused on us. (Wild birds are much more stimulating to the dog.) The sessions are longer which may cause the dog to be hot and/or tired.
The number of bird contacts changes.
The dog can only progress when it finds a bird. As trainers, knowing where the birds are is critical. Consistent bird contact creates consistent opportunities for learning.
Key points to remember.
• Progress in wild bird training depends on the foundation created during pigeon training. If your dog isn’t performing well in training situations, it’s not ready to move on.
• Expect your dog to do things wrong on wild birds. Give it some freedom to learn from mistakes. Don’t correct too hard or too fast. Look for progress not perfection.
• More birds are not always better. Dogs learn by repetition and consistent bird contact over a longer period will provide those repetitions.
• Some dogs can take a lot of pressure and the finishing will go quickly. Others must be handled more delicately. Read your dog.
• Timing is everything. The dog must understand why it was corrected. If your timing is good, much progress can be made in a few encounters.
• Dogs are place oriented. They learn to respond to certain stimulus in the training field, but it will take repetition to generalize that behavior on wild birds.
• Dogs constantly read our body language. We, too, act differently in situations involving wild birds.
Finishing your dog on wild birds will take time. But the results of that effort will reward you with many years of satisfaction and pride.
When Betsy and I sit down to discuss litters we’d like to produce, it’s a fun process but it also takes hard work. We look at individual sires and dams. We also look at possible combinations of traits, characteristics and tendencies of those dogs, both in the field and in the kennel.
We also evaluate litters already produced. While appraising one dog from a litter gives us some idea of what its parents can produce, an even better option is to evaluate an entire litter. Then we can truly get a feel for the preponderance and/or scarcity of the various traits we’re breeding for.
We’re fortunate to train many dogs we’ve bred and this summer has been fantastic. We’ve looked at offspring from seven litters—from first-year dogs and puppies to three-year-olds.
Six of seven puppies from our January 2011 litter by Northwoods Chablis x Northwoods Blue Ox litter are here for early training. Betsy and I kept two and four are client-owned. We’re getting a good look at what first-time dam Chablis is passing on. We’re very pleased with our initial impressions—all are naturally staunch on point, back and, to some degree, retrieve. They have a strong urge to hunt for birds and are beautiful on point with lofty posture and high, straight tails.
Beasley: Ox x Chablis (2011) male
Tes: Ox x Chablis (2011) female
Last year the breeding of Houston’s Belle’s Choice x Northwoods Blue Ox produced seven puppies and all have been in for training. Again, four are client-owned, Dan Stadin, the man who works with us, owns one and we own two. This litter is being steadied to wing and/or shot and is finishing out with great character and intensity. It should be an exciting fall for these one-year-old dogs and their owners.
Parmigiano Ox x Choice (2010) male
Camembert: Ox x Choice (2010) female
In addition to those two, this summer we’re training offspring from the following litters:
2011: Northwoods Prancer x CH Westfall’s Black Ice
2010: CH Houston’s Belle x Northwoods Blue Ox
2009: CH Houston’s Belle x CH Magic’s Rocky Belleboa
2009: Houston’s Belle’s Choice x Blue Shaquille
2008: Old Glory Bluebell x CH Magic’s Rocky Belleboa
J.B.: CH Magic’s Rocky Belleboa x Old Glory Bluebelle (2008) male
The history of using dogs for hunting game birds in the state of North Dakota is peculiar, to say the least. It would be funny, too, except that it actually happened. Less than thirty years earlier, Indian wars were being fought and forty years earlier the American Bison was still being market hunted. How could bird dogs be of that much importance?
In 1919, North Dakota passed a law that outlawed the use of dogs for hunting upland game birds. Dogs were allowed for retrieving waterfowl only. “No bird dogs allowed to run loose or with owners between April 1 and November 1.”
Shortly after those restrictions, the North Dakota Game and Fish Board of Control, in its 1919-1920 Biennial Report, bragged about the success of the law: “It is conceded by everybody that the grouse and prairie chickens were never more plentiful than they were the past two seasons…the bill cutting out the use of dogs was one of the most far-sighted pieces of legislation ever passed for the conservation of game and should never be repealed…”
Some members of the Board of Control believed fewer birds were lost or crippled by using dogs to retrieve them. In 1933, after much bantering about what types of dogs, the law was changed again to only allow spaniels or retrievers for retrieving. “Use of Pointers, Setters and Droppers is unlawful.”
Later in 1943, a new law was passed that is still in effect today: “All types of dogs were legal to hunt upland game in season.”
Finally, common sense prevailed.
Quotes from Feathers from the Prairie by Morris D. Johnson and Joseph Knue.
I recently finished the New York Times bestseller Inside of a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz and overall found it fascinating. Horowitz is a cognitive scientist and her book explains, based on her research and the research of others, how dogs perceive their worlds, other dogs and humans. In short, she tries to help us picture what it is like to be a dog.
The book begins with a brief background of how the dog came to be. Horowitz includes interesting information about the importance of genetics vs. environment and concludes that the combination ultimately determines what an individual dog will become.
“…dogs, like us, are more than their genome. No animal develops in a vacuum: Genes interact with the environment to produce the dog you come to know.”
The chapters on the various senses of the dog were insightful but the descriptions of various experiments used to make a point were, at times, too detailed.
I thoroughly enjoyed the section “Inside of a Dog” (same as the book title) which includes topics such as what a dog knows, dogs and time, right and wrong, living in the moment and others. If you only read this section, the book will have been worth your time.
Although not a formal training book, Inside of a Dog has practical application for understanding behavior. And the more we know about how dogs think and act, the better dog trainers we can be.
Three-year-old Ridge Creek Cody, a setter male co-bred by Paul Hauge and Northwoods Bird Dogs, won Runner-up in the All America Open Shooting Dog Championship. The trial was held near Carson, North Dakota, and was run on native pheasants and sharp-tailed grouse.
When Betsy and I sit down to discuss litters we’d like to produce, it’s a fun process but it also takes hard work. We look at individual sires and dams. We also look at possible combinations of traits, characteristics and tendencies of those dogs, both in the field and in the kennel.
I recently finished the New York Times bestseller Inside of a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz and overall found it fascinating. Horowitz is a cognitive scientist and her book explains, based on her research and the research of others, how dogs perceive their worlds, other dogs and humans. In short, she tries to help us picture what it is like to be a dog.