Gun Dog Magazine is the best magazine for hunting enthusiasts who are owners of retrieving breeds. Each issue is guaranteed to be filled with useful information devoted to you, your dog and the sport of upland bird and waterfowl hunters.
EVERY YEAR THE American Kennel Club releases a list of the most popular dog breeds in the United States (based on the AKC’s registration numbers) and the Labrador retriever ranked number one in 2016. That’s probably not a big surprise to most folks—especially readers of this magazine—but what’s especially noteworthy is that this marks the 26th year in a row Labs have held that position. Such longevity says a lot about the Lab’s many positive characteristics. Other breeds may enjoy a moment in the sun—often based on fads, social trends, the appeal of a canine movie or television star, etc.—but the Lab’s ongoing popularity is more deeply rooted. Simply stated, they are darned nice dogs, easy keepers and highly adaptable to a variety of settings, circumstances and households, and capable…
I am writing on behalf of the Board of Directors of the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever Club USA, representing the membership of the club, to express our disappointment with the article “On Condition of Anonymity” by Chad Mason in the June/July 2017 issue. We understand that Mr. Mason was writing a column that is by nature an opinion piece and he acknowledges that this is only one person’s opinion. However, we feel that he was unfair by not providing a fair and balanced representation of the breed by including others. Mr. Mason admits he has never seen the breed, yet he was willing to take just one person’s input for this article. Even when he was told he should get input from others, he didn’t. We would expect better…
YEAH, I KNOW. You’ve heard it a hundred times.You’ve probably heard it from me at least that many times. I may not be clever, but at least I’m repetitive: during a dog’s first season, when it’s actually hunting, you have to enforce what it’s learned in the training yard. Today I’m going to talk about what, in the real world, that actually entails. I’m going to dispense with what it is you’ve actually trained your dog to do, and get to the crux of this month’s discussion: your behavior, and what you should do if, how and when. Your pup’s first season, as much as anything, is a mindset, not a physical discipline (it is a physical discipline, but we’ll get to that in a moment). For at least the…
WHEN I WAS a kid, we had pointing dogs. I can’t say we were “old school,” because everybody was old school back then. When we talked about “running” our dogs, we meant taking them out to the country in the off-season and letting them run for exercise and boredom remediation. But a retriever person means something quite different when she talks about running her dog. In retriever parlance, to “run” a dog means to direct the dog in the field, such as we do on a blind retrieve or a blown mark. Some readers may say, “Wait, there’s already a word for that—it’s called handling .” Maybe so. But I’ve been hanging around the retriever world for more than a decade now, and I can count on one hand the…
IN COMING INSTALLMENTS I will be addressing some specific training methods and training tools, some of which involve the use of electronic training collars. With that in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to discuss my personal history with, and thoughts about, e-collars. Few concepts in gun dog training generate as much controversy as the use of electronic collars. Many see the use of e-collars as a cheap “shortcut,” a way to get results from a dog without building the foundation required for long-term success. There are those that see the use of e-collars as out-and-out animal cruelty, as indeed an e-collar in the wrong hands can do grave damage. Alternatively, there are many who see the e-collar as an invaluable training tool that affords a trainer both…
ÒI CAME UP with the idea after checking out a bunch of cheap plastic crates for my Lab. I remember looking at them and wondering, what’s up with these dog boxes? I realized I wanted something better for my dog, I wanted to fix the core function of a kennel, which is to keep the dog safe. “The only options I felt comfortable with Gunner in were full aluminum boxes but I didn’t want to fill up the bed of my truck. So I started researching high-end companies like YETI to see what they addressed in their products and what I should look at when it came to producing a quality dog crate.” The inspiration for Gunner Kennels, as owner and founder Addison Edmonds explains, was a matter of wanting…
