Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2017 i Gun Dog

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…

QUESTION I have a 2-year-old male pointer that was positive for Ehrlichia when his heartworm test was done. The doctor said we should check with another blood test; it came back normal and now we don't have to do anything. What can I do to prevent this in the future? –D ANSWER Many clinics now use the 4DX test from Idexx for their heartworm testing because it also screens for Lyme disease, Anaplasma and Ehrlichia. We have discussed heartworm testing in dogs in past columns, so we will focus on these three tick-borne diseases. Many of the positive results for these tests are just showing a footprint of the disease left over in the immune system of the dog. If the dog is not sick based on history and physical…

AT THE END of World War II, Remington decided to consolidate their shotguns into one action. Prewar they made the slick-shucking Model 31 and long-recoil Model 11, based on the Browning Auto-5 patent. Subsequently, they changed the look of the venerable 11’s square back to a curved receiver and called it the 11-48, still recoil operated. By the late 1950s they changed direction and brought out their gas-operated Model 58 Sportsman. By harnessing the rapidly expanding propellant gasses from the firing of the shell, a smoother cycling and softer recoiling shotgun emerged. Remington wasn’t the first—Sears, Roebuck & Company’s J. C. Higgins Model 60, made by High Standard, was the first gas-operated semi auto on the market—but Remington soon became the dominant figure. The Model 58, based on the Model…

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…

HAVE YOU BEEN thinking about getting another dog? Are you curious about potential downsides? I’ve owned as many as five dogs at once, as well as having a couple more in my kennel that I was training. There are good reasons for getting another dog, but two-dog households aren’t for everybody. First of all, ask yourself this: how much do you hunt? If you’re a dozen-days-a-year guy, and those trips are spaced apart on weekends, then one dog is probably all you need. Any way you look at it, a single dog costs less to care for and is less wear and tear on your house than two. But if you hunt, say, 30 or 40 days a year, and take hunting trips that stretch for a week or more,…

North Dakota is the gateway of the Central Flyway, the first stop for migrating ducks and geese traveling south from Saskatchewan. Birds stopping here rely on rolling harvested corn fields to provide the high protein food source they need to continue their journey. This is field hunting at its best, and retrievers here must be prepared to face different challenges than in water. They were only dots crossing the bluff up from the Missouri River to a huge sea of harvested corn. But they stirred great excitement in the layout blinds positioned among many dozen Canada goose decoys and full-bodied mallards. “Here they come, boys!” exclaimed Jordan Sargent, a lifelong resident of Hazen, North Dakota, and Banded and Avery Outdoors Pro-Staff member. “They” were mallards, still a long way off…

WISPS OF MIST hung scattered above the shallow water, then dissipated like vague dreams in the rising light. Living trees back from the swamp’s murky edge, along with lifeless skeletons of others that rose from the water, were moist with droplets of dew. A smell, heavy and mysterious, blanketed the swamp like the wet breath of a living thing. To the boy standing in the deeper shadows of the trees, the autumn morning was thick with expectation. The muted whisper of a passing owl was followed by the louder rush of ducks winging above the trees in the fast-fading darkness. After the ducks had passed, the boy stepped forward and crouched in a toss of brush on shore in front of the trees. A small black Labrador retriever followed and…

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…

COLDER TEMPS AND hard work during the damp, windy days of late fall and early winter can double your dog’s caloric needs. Our gun dogs’ nutritional needs vary from day to day in contrast to house pets. Hunting dogs are subject to continual changes in weather and activity. These variables can have a profound effect on your dog’s nutritional needs. Beyond size and each individual’s metabolic rate, exercise, environmental temperature and stress are all key factors. WHERE TO BEGIN? It’s good practice to keep your dog trim in the off-season, then allow a little weight gain coming into fall. A properly fed and conditioned gun dog will exhibit an “hourglass” figure, and from the side we should see some “tuck up” in the flank area. Seeing this body condition along…

Luke Scherders spoke the words every duck hunter wants to hear: “This is the kind of flock I like.” Almost on cue the lead greenhead curved its wingtips toward the picked cornfield. Less than a second later, the 24 other mallards did the same and the men below in layouts all remembered just why it is we chase these awesome birds. It was a T-shirt warm October day. No wind. And the Ontario field we were in was harvested but the stalks were so high Luke had to drive his truck and trailer around in circles just to make a hole for the decoys. The locals call these cut kernel fields, but it just looked like half-assed harvested corn to me. Regardless, it was fantastic for killing birds in and…

It all started while filming a Gun Dog training DVD a few years ago. Training legend Tom Dokken saw one of the cameramen using a unique tool to film aerial shots of the dogs working cover. The tool? A drone. With many people, when the wheels start turning they never really take them anywhere. Not so with Dokken, who years ago changed how we look at training dummies by innovating the first offerings in the DeadFowl trainer lineup. Today Dead-Fowl trainers, which are now offered in a wide range of realistic waterfowl and upland gamebird options, are the gold standard for professional and amateur trainers alike. During that first day of taping as Dokken watched the drone being piloted around, he realized that a question he’d been asking himself for…

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