Posted in DOGS, ENJOYING BOTH on Sep 5th, 2011
Just posted: another video of Sugar, the video-camera wearing lab. Time Sugar’s hunting geese. Pretty cool video. I also posted a video Puck and I made the same way. I put this video up last spring, but now is a good time to revisit it. I’ll be posting more videos like it this hunting season. [...]
Posted in DOGS on Aug 15th, 2011
As a primer to the upcoming bird season, I was flipping through Common Sense Grouse and Woodcock Training by Roy W. Strickland today. Roy Strickland was a revered gun dog trainer. Is his 60+ year career, he trained lots of great grouse dogs and saw many more. The fifth chapter of his handy little book [...]
Posted in DOGS on Aug 14th, 2011
Irish Setters are beautiful dogs with sad stories. At one time, they were hunting dogs, and they were bred for the field. But over time, they lost their hunting backgrounds and were turned into overbred show dogs. But today that’s changing. A dedicated group of people are breeding Red Setters – a variant of the [...]
Posted in DOGS on Aug 8th, 2011
Every August I take Puck up to Wildwind Kennels for physical conditioning and tuning up. We headed up to central Maine yesterday to kick off this year’s training camp. While we were there, Jim and the guys were running spaniels and doing some dog work. They were kind enough to ask me along and we [...]
Posted in DOGS, ENJOYING BOTH on Jul 17th, 2011
Old hunting pictures are great ways to see how things used to be done. Take a look at these pics to see what I mean. This first one is of a English Pointer. Take a look at how low the dog’s tail is. It was only later in the 20th century that pointers were bred [...]
Posted in DOGS on Jul 15th, 2011
What could be simple than a check cord? It’s just a chunk of rope. You attach it to your dog and train away. Of course, it’s not that simple. There are right and wrong ways to use this training essential. Here are a couple articles that point out some of those dos and don’t. If [...]
Posted in DOGS on Jul 7th, 2011
Last fall I headed down to Addieville East Game Farm to prepare an article for Shooting Sportsman magazine. Well, my article just came out, and here are some of the pics the magazine didn’t use. The pups are Elhews from Chokebore Kennels. The other dogs are from Addieville, including those great looking English Cockers.
Posted in DOGS on Jun 13th, 2011
Back before I sold my soul to the world of advertising, I aspired to be a real writer. While I was laboring away on short stories and reading small-print literary journals, I came across a short story by a new writer names Rick Bass. After I found figured out that “real writer” means “real poor” [...]
Posted in DOGS on Jun 7th, 2011
Craig Doherty up at Wild Apple Kennel emailed me the other day with this video of the pups his female Indian Creek Triple Rail just had. Craig’s three-time champion Wild Apple Jack sired the litter and I’m sure these pups will make fantastic grouse and woodcock dogs. You can find out more about the breeding and [...]
Posted in DOGS, ENJOYING BOTH on May 20th, 2011
The US and the UK: we both pursue game birds. We just do it in very different ways. Over here we hunt, in the UK they shoot. But on both sides of the Atlantic, well trained dogs are essential to having a good time and doing things right. Take a look at this video to [...]
