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 SO OFTEN my cousin Randy will email or call me with this opening line: “I’m gonna complicate your life.” I instantly know what’s coming. He’s going to inform me of an advertisement he’s just seen for Irish setter puppies. Basically, he’s piling an awful lot of cute, furry temptation on me, knowing I’ll have to wrestle with the should-I-or-shouldn’t-I dilemma for at least a little while before common sense prevails and I say no, I already have all the dogs I need. (Aside: I can hear many of you asking, what does need have to do with it?) In fairness to Randy, I should add that I seldom miss the opportunity to do the same to him, although in Randy’s case it’s usually a litter of springer spaniels (his…
NORMALLY I ENJOY your articles about the different breeds of hunting dogs. I am a Lab guy but I love learning about (and hunting over) different breeds. But I must take exception to your recent article about the Boykin spaniel. In it the author describes hunting a Boykin along with a Lab near a farm pond in “freezing cold” conditions. Upon shooting a pheasant that landed out on “thin ice,” the owner of the 75-pound Lab sends the dog to retrieve. The dog breaks through the ice and cannot free itself. I am sure most if not all of your readers will agree—there is NO bird worth risking the life or safety of a dog. It may have been just a farm pond but the owner was wet up to…
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I’M EMBARRASSED TO admit that from time to time I grow weary of the expensive South American shooting expeditions, bales of cash and adulation I receive, gratis, for my humble role as the pointing dog columnist in this fine magazine. Perhaps, I was musing this morning, I need a few poison pen letters to swing the balance a bit in the other direction, the receipt of which my editor here at GUN DOG immensely enjoys. [Editor’s note: Not! ] So here I go, again. What follows are some common training myths that just don’t pan out. 1. NEVER SHOOT A BIRD YOUR DOG DOESN’T POINT. I got my first bird dog, a Brittany, when I was 12, and although a lot of my memory of those years is a bit…
THIS STORY ILLUSTRATES why a man should never take his wife along to look at puppies. That may sound like a sexist statement, so I need to add a disclaimer. There may be couples in which the wife is the jaded and calculating thinker, while the husband is the one whose resolve instantly melts upon contact with puppies of all kinds. However, it is not so in our house. My wife says I’m cold-hearted because when I look at puppies, I can take ‘em or leave ‘em. She has even gone so far as to say I am “not a dog person,” because of my stoic sales-resistance in the presence of baby dogs. In a recent column, I wrote about Tim Galeazzi’s Iowa Pointing Labs operation at Knoxville, Iowa (www.iowapointinglabs.com).…
AFTER A RICH and rewarding career as a pro trainer, I sold Pond View Kennels in 2006 and achieved a degree of freedom from the early-morning feedings, endless kennel cleanings and unscheduled vet visits that had been a defining part of my adult life. Despite the fact that I have now spent more than a decade in “retirement,” gun dogs have become a way of life for me and have afforded me both a career and a sense of identity. I have been lucky, therefore, to have remained closely connected to dogs, owner/handlers and trainers in my work as a sporting dog specialist with both Purina and The Orvis Company. I still take great satisfaction from judging and attending trials and hunt tests where possible, and I continue to enjoy…
