doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com book reccomendations for training upland dogs?

Speed train your own bird dog, by Larry Mueller 1990 first edition.
Worth to take a deep look a it.
The electric collar is not present in 1990. Not a big problem to introduce.
good luck

Best line I heard from a dog trainer about dog training books was, "What level does your dog read at?" His point was that if you read the book they all will get you to where you are going. They just get there differently. And a dog will only learn so much and then it comes down to breeding. No book ever gave a dog a good nose or even the desire to use it. They just point the trainer in the direction to get the most out of the dogs.

Well said, I like that.
Dog may not be able to understand writing but they can read a man better than most of the human.

KY Jon, very well said.
That's why I recommend 'Sensability' first rule of war 'know your enemy'
I have very good dogs and it always puts my teeth on edge and makes my hackles rise when I read 'electric collar', 'force breaking' etc., I want my dogs to love me as much as I love them, when the love affair is over or didn't start we parted.

Richard Wolters is a damn good writer. But, the truth is, he is a better writer than trainer. Wolters wrote "Water Dog" after training one retriever. It was hugely successful. He liked that experience so much that he got himself a pointing dog and worked with it so he could write "Gun Dog." Yes, he has some good points in both books. But, he is no real dog trainer. He is a writer. Take the information in his books with a grain of skepticism.

Back when I was training pointers (unfortunately, quite a few years ago) I read most of em, including Wolters. I thought Wing and Shot" by Robert Wehle and "Best Way to Train your Gun Dog" by Bill Tarrant/ Delmar Smith were the best. I imagine there are several published since that may be better.

Good luck. Training a bird dog is a wonderful thing to do.
Jake

Jake,

Gundog was written in 1961, and waterdog was published years later. I agree that Wolters is a writer, but he based his training from what was learned by some of the most expereinced trainers anywhere. Leader Dogs of the Blind.

Bill

Met Mr. Wolters many times, never saw him in brush pants. Not a criticism because only a favored few have seen me in brush pants!!

Marc:

There are a ton of books on pointing dog training, but one of my favorites is "Point, Training the All-Season Birddog", by James B. Spencer. Written in 1995, he has a pretty much common-sense approach. He spends some time describing the attributes of the various pointing breeds and has info on testing/trialing, but the meat of the book is training. PM me and I'll drop my copy in the mail or here's one place you can get a copy:
http://www.lcsupply.com/Product/Books-and-Videos/Point-Training-the-All-Seasons-Bird-Dog.html

You can book-learn all you want but it will never replace getting face-to-face with people training birddogs... one of the best ways to do that is to hook up with a local club. For example it looks like the Lake Superior Pointing Dog Club is near you. (FYI, I'm involved with NAVHDA and don't have any experience with LSPDC.)
http://www.lspdc.com/

Bryan

Wolters step by step training works...my dog is proof. Trained to voice and hand signals using his book.

Bill, I bow to your information. It has been many years since I pulled these books out and in my doting old age the details may be smudged. And, I think Wolters has some very good points. But, he was no dog trainer. Kind of like a sports writer who never coached writing a book about how to coach. I just think it should be viewed through through the right lens. Regards, Jake