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.
MY COUSIN RANDY works as a shooting coach at a gun club. He recently sent me this e-mail: I worked all day yesterday at the gun club. Great day. Weather was ideal, lots of people talking about guns, shooting styles, new equipment, upcoming tournaments, etc. Then a younger guy came in with his golden retriever pup. The pup was 7 months old, happy as could be and a blast to play around with. Then the guy announced that he wanted to get the puppy used to the gunfire and my heart sank. I tried to drop some subtle hints about not doing that because the trap fields were full of shooters and it was going to be sensory overload. The guy shrugged it off like he knew better. After they…
I WANTED TO share a pic of my Boykin spaniel, Tucker. In 2018 he was the No. 3 ranked Boykin spaniel in North America Diving Dogs, with a personal best jump of 19 feet, 3 inches. He is also a waterfowl retrieving machine. Tucker is 21/2 and we hunt near Leonardtown, Maryland. Luke Martin JOE ARNETTE I was surprised to read that Joe has retired, but I respect his decision. I keep telling my son, “If I start writing crap, please tell me!” He’s a very good writer and does quite a bit for the Spokane newspaper. He thinks too much of me and the written word to not tell me. I hunted with Joe in Kansas many years ago—prairie chickens and pheasants. We hit it off very well, and…
1 FOLLOW YOUR INSTINCTS Franchi has made a most formidable field gun with its new Instinct LX over/under. We have shot the L and SL models to death on skeet and roosters, and love them both. This version has a gorgeous walnut stock and Schnabel forend joined together by an engraved receiver with gold inlay. Available in 20- or 12-gauge, the safety-mounted selector allows shooters to pick which barrel fires first. franchiusa.com 2 FATHER’S DAY GIFT? We are saving our sheckles for a spendy auto-loader, and it will be tough to pass up the Fabarm L4S Deluxe if we ever get the truck, boat and house paid off...and the OK from our lovely wives. We’re suckers for intricate scroll work, and the Deluxe has a beauty of an engraving with…
TIME WAS, I thought the tone buttons on my e-collars were a waste of…tone. After all, I had a voice, and I had a whistle. I could (and can to this day) scream at a dog until my ears bleed. And my friends, with cause, may well consider me the poster boy for excess whistling. What’s more, if a dog continued to ignore me—hard to believe given my eminent stature in the dog-training universe, but still—I would march right out there and make him listen. So there. But nothing lasts forever, and my preconceived ideas about tone buttons, along with a whole bunch of other preconceived ideas I’d rather not go into, have fallen by the wayside. The reason? I was wrong. These days, the more I rely on my…
WORKING WITH BUMPERS and dummies is a year-round affair for most of our dogs, but actual contact with live (or recently alive) birds isn’t. In fact, by the time you get into the summer your dog will probably not have had contact with the real thing in several months. This can be a problem when the season opens, which is why it’s best to start addressing the live-bird issue long before September or October. There are several considerations to be made when dealing with actual birds in a training scenario, not the least of which is access to the real thing. DEAD ONES, LIVE ONES Just as a disclaimer, if anyone reading this is dealing with a young dog that hasn’t been introduced to feathers, don’t go looking for a…
A FEW YEARS ago, a friend came to me for some help with a young English springer named Wylie. At the time the dog was over a year old; he had received some basic foundation training and obedience and had been effectively socialized and conditioned to gunfire. He had even seen some birds, for which he had expressed clear enthusiasm. The dog was athletic and driven; his breeding was decent, and he had all of the raw material required of a solid, functional, hunting gun dog. What Wylie lacked, and what my friend was struggling to establish, was any sense of range. When put down in the training field the dog immediately stretched way out beyond gun range and followed his nose well out of sight. His casts were far…
