Innehållsförteckning för December - January - February 2018 från Gun Dog

FOR MANY YEARS, much of the gun dog world has accepted one man’s highly debatable extrapolation as gospel truth. The man was writer Richard Wolters, who based his extrapolation on a scientific study that had examined the early development of puppies and the effect on their development if they had little or no human contact during their first few weeks. The study determined there were five critical periods in a puppy’s development, all occurring before 16 weeks of age. According to the study, a puppy’s brain attains its adult form by day 49, and from this,Wolters extrapolated that seven weeks of age is the ideal moment for a gun dog puppy to go home to, and bond with, his new (human) family. In Gun Dog , his 1961 book on…

PROBLEM The two most asked questions from neophyte dog owners or owners with training problems are usually what is the best way to train my dog, and how do I get my dog to do what I want him to do and not do what I don’t want him to do? The answer to the first question is there is no one best way that applies to all dogs, but for each individual there will be a way that is best or at least better suited to that individual dog. Find that way and you have the answer to the second question. And that is where dog training becomes an art. TRAINING TECHNIQUES There are two schools of dog training. One is the “Be the leader.” This is also…

The wintry west extends his blastAnd hail and rain does blaw;Or, the stormy north sends driving forthThe blinding sleet and snaw;While tumbling brown, the burn comes down,And roars frae bank to brae;And bird and beast in covert rest,And pass the heartless day. The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,The joyless winter-day,Let others fear, to me more dearThan all the pride of May:The tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul…. Robert Burns (1759-1796), Winter: a Dirge As the bitter Midwest winter blasts extend into February and March, I certainly do look forward to spring—and the Michigan steelheading season—yet I have always enjoyed most of winter as my favorite season. First of all, I’m a chump for the holidays, beginning with Halloween and extending through Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year’s celebration (a quiet…

News Flash: “Dog killed by wolf in north Idaho, could be growing trend.”That’s certainly not news to those who live an outdoor lifestyle in the West. While the wolf population is getting most of the headlines, what may be the real news is how well many other predators are faring out there, as well. Judiciously regulated predators such as bobcat, cougar, black and grizzly bear as well as introduced and naturally expanding packs of wolves have all demonstrated that wildlife management through hunting has benefited them. When I began hunting upland birds with dogs in the late 1970s, run-ins with porcupines were about the worst I could imagine for my dogs. For my first male English setter, 40 quills and 40 dollars was the tally. Ol’ Teddy got tail-slapped by…

Together CHLOE (left) and TIMBER (right) were amazing…covering ground, pointing coveys and honoring each other. They were a joy to watch. Sadly Chloe has passed and will be dearly missed this hunting season. — Darin Young, Newcastle, OK This is my 1 1/2-year-old chocolate lab RUGER. Ruger loves dock diving, retrieving birds and spending time with his humans! — Whitnee Bohrn, Houston TX CODI is a Small Munsterlander pointer. He is 6.5 years old, a great hunter and my first hunting dog. — Scott Ludwig, Wheeling IL Training with DUTCHESS, a 3-year-old English springer spaniel of Springer Brook Farm in Stillwater, New Jersey. —Jennifer Harold, via email…

1 MADE TO MARCH Lightweight, waterproof and breathable, the Condor LCX is built for long South Dakota walks for trophy roosters. Made with full-grain leather, the “Deep Forest” sole is equal parts durable, flexible and comfortable. Designed for any terrain. $399 lechameau.com 2 ALL-DAY STRONG Formulated for working dogs, Eukanuba Premium is a 30/20 blend of protein to fat, providing long-lasting energy through customized carbohydrate blends and high fat content. Expect to see your bird dog build muscle while staying lean and recover more quickly. The nutrients in 30/20 promote optimal scenting abilities as well. $38-$45 (29-lb bag) eukanuba.com 3 RETRIEVE IT RIGHT The hard head of the Dokken DeadFowl Trainer encourages proper retrieves, plus you can inject scent into the soft body. A Power Throw Grip allows for long…

BIRD DOGS HAVE a tough life. They plow through freezing waves to retrieve ducks, burrow through briars to roust out pheasants and rip themselves open on barbed wire. All of which they’re willing to do. But it’s up to you to see after their well-being, and an easy way to catch small problems before they develop into large ones is with a tailgate checkup. A tailgate checkup is a quick examination of your pup, noting any minor injuries he’s incurred. Most of the exam will be visual, but you’ll need a few basic tools to do the job right: a flea comb, a stiff wire brush or heavy metal comb for combing out burrs, and cotton swabs and saline solution. Keep them in a separate place in your truck so…

KRIEGHOFF IS A name familiar to shooters. Founded in 1886 in Suhl, Germany—the heart of Germany’s gun-making culture—the company was interrupted by post-war politics and finally resettled in Ulm, Germany. In the 1970s Krieghoff began making an updated version of the Remington 32. A distinctive over/under, the 32 had separated barrels and locked up with a unique sliding hood that engaged lugs located alongside the top barrel.With its long receiver, the 32 proved to be a fine shotgun whose production was also stopped by World War II. The Krieghoff version, called the K 32, updated the Remington gun with a better trigger and some other refinements. With its separated barrels that allowed cooling and also prevented impact change, the K 32 became an instant hit on these shores. In 1983,…

A short time after the last public hanging in downtown Fairbanks in 1929, University of Alaska scholars Otto W. “William” Geist and Ivar Skarland would walk down from the campus and saunter along the railroad tracks that are still present today and run parallel to four busy lanes of traffic on Geist Road. The pair of scientists would often walk for a mile or so along the railroad tracks and discuss, among other things, I am sure, the hundreds of sharp-tailed grouse they would see and flush along the way. Having done a lot of dog training, walking and riding my horse in the fields and woods adjacent those same railroad tracks over the last few decades, I must report never having seen a single sharp-tailed grouse. But along a…

A NUMBER OF years ago a friend who owned a setter I’d trained was hunting during the early part of the season, when the weather in Montana is typically too hot for comfort by 10:00 in the morning. But this wasn’t a typical day. He arrived in the field with the temperature hovering in the upper 30s, still wet from a snowfall the night before. Here and there, drifts of snow stuck to the shady sides of tufts of grass.Within an hour, the dog was soaked, and it soon began shivering violently.Then it went down. Dogs that are dangerously cold will often stop hunting and try to “burrow,” an instinctive reaction to losing body heat. His setter was curled up in a ball and refused to move.When my friend realized…

WHEN GEORGE HICKOX was six years old, his grandfather gifted him an English setter, which he recalls fondly. “My grandpa probably paid $5 for that dog, but he was my dog. Back then in South Carolina, we had a lot of farms to hunt. A lot of peapod patches and other places to look for quail. Bird dogs were like hockey in Canada then. Every day I hunted with that setter, and even though I never backed him or anything, I thought he was the best.” Having spent his formative years following a good dog around while carrying an old J.C. Higgins pump shotgun certainly helped to mold Hickox as a youngster. He carried a passion for both dogs and quail throughout his school years and even when he went…

BEFORE SETTING OUT to hunt an area, most hunters look the area over to decide on the best approach. They consider the type of birds being hunted, how the cover lays, the wind direction, etc. As for using the wind, I’ve read so many articles saying you should always hunt into the wind, I could croak. How far from the truck would we be by the end of the day if this were taken literally? Now that I have that out of the way, I’d like to offer the following suggestions, originally written as training drills meant to teach young dogs the basics of field search and patterning, and to introduce and reinforce a couple methods of “swinging” the dog in different directions to complement the style or pattern best…

We walk those easy routes occasionally, but most of the time we go where others don’t. This, it seems, is the start to quality hunting. A few buddies and I have a familiar ritual each December. We pick a weekend that works for all of us and meet up in north-central Wisconsin for a grouse hunt. It’s not the only time of the season we hunt ruffs, but it is consistently the most enjoyable. Compared to the early-season forays, the birds our dogs flush tend to offer us shots. Whether we make them or not is entirely up to the whims of the wing-shooting gods, but at least we have a better chance than during the foliage-filled earlier days of the season. We also almost always have the woods to…

CERTAIN NATIVE AMERICAN tribes recorded the passing of years by archiving pictographic images of memorable happenings onto a buffalo hide. These remarkable histories were typically done in the cold months—a good time for reflection—thus, they were called Winter Counts. As a historical technique, winter count is a natural extension of the human mind and encapsulates time as individual events that visually symbolize a particular period.These depictions are of matters both good and bad, of successes and failures, of seasons of plenty and times of despair, of life and death. Winter count is history recorded one significant image at a time.What occurrences are noteworthy, however, are subject to the interpretation of the chronicler. 1630—The Massachusetts Bay Colony sets a long-term policy of wildlife persecution through misunderstanding and ignorance by establishing the…