- "If you own a retriever, your first step is to join a local club. You will get a warm reception - hunt test folks are like that. Before long, you will be sitting on a pail beside your dog, blowing on a duck call, and joining the rest of us having fun with our dogs."
~ The Retriever Journal (Feb/Mar 2008)
- "If it's not prohibited, it's permitted." ~Brad Hanson
- "To his dog, every man is Napoleon, hence the constant popularity of dogs." ~Aldous Huxley
- "I can't think of anything that brings me closer to tears than when my old dog -- completely exhausted after a hard day in the field -- limps away from her nice spot in front of the fire and comes over to where I'm sitting and puts her head in my lap, a paw over my knee, and closes her eyes and goes back to sleep. I don't know what I've done to deserve that kind of friend."~ Gene Hill, "The Dog Man"
- "A man's soul can be judged by the way he treats his dog." ~ Charles Doran
- "Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear." ~ Dave Barry
- If your dog is too fat, you are not getting enough exercise. ~Unknown
- "Dogs need to sniff the ground; it's how they keep abreast of current events. The ground is a giant dog newspaper, containing all kinds of late-breaking dog news items, which, if they are especially urgent, are often continued in the next yard." ~Dave Barry
- The individual component skills necessary for effective marking include concentration, steadiness, memory, distance estimation, and ignoring diversions.
- You will never know how good any dog is whose basics were not thorough.
- Dogs learn best through causal relationships established through consistent repetition.
- The world is full of willing people... some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.
- You can finish school, but you can never finish your education.
- There is little reason to expect a dog to be more precise than you are.
- When proofing a dog's performance, expose him to strong distraction in order to tempt him into disobedience, then correct him for it.
- Never ask a man what kind of dog he has. If he has a lab, he'll tell you, if he doesn't, you don't want to shame him by asking.
- The art of retriever training includes striking a productive, logical, progressive balance in a dog's training regiment.
- Training is teaching, not testing. Dogs don't learn from failure.
- "When a man is proud of his dog and shows it, I like him. When his dog is proud of him and shows it, I deeply respect him." - Gene Hill
- Don't train when you are in a bad mood.
- Training opportunities are all around you. There's no better place to begin than in the home and there's no better time than right now!
- If the dog is confused, go back to something he does well so that you can praise him. Put him away and try again later.
- Emphasize communication. Through consistency in command, movement, etc. you can communicate what you want (e.g. which bird, what line). This is a team sport.
- Make training sessions FUN! You want the time spent training to be the most fun your dog has with you, not the time he dreads.
- Your dog has to believe you will enforce your commands.
- Once you have taught a dog what you want him to do, you can then train him to do it.
- Dog training is not an exacting science. It involves communication and interpretation. Therefore exact training methods may not be as important as you think.
- Once an animal has been conditioned to a behavior, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the animal will revert back to that behavior given the opportunity either through timing or place.
- Work to achieve balance in training. Almost always, training that enhances one aspect of training diminishes another.
- DO NOT let your cute new puppy do things you would not want a full grown 80 pound adult dog do.
- Establish and maintain standards. Keep your standards consistent so the dog knows what to expect. It is better to reduce the level of difficulty of the task than to reduce the standard on a difficult task.
- Training gun dogs is not rocket science. It takes consistency and repetition of the basics, coupled with enough fun to keep pup working enthusiastically.
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