Happy in the Field, Happy at Home (appeared in September 2015 issue of Wyoming Wildlife)

I wouldn’t hunt birds without a dog. Losing hit birds drives me crazy, as it would any ethical hunter, and without a dog it happens too often. I learned a lot training my own dogs, but I also put up with some dogs that chased rabbits and chewed up birds. My desire for better gun dogs led me to a professional trainer, an idea I had resisted because I believed professional training is for dogs that never see the inside of a house because they are a tool, not a friend.  I found out that a good trainer will train dogs to suit the owner, but some old-school trainers still think that letting a dog be a house pet will spoil him for hunting.  I keep my dogs in the house because I enjoy the companionship, but I expect them to behave. Keeping them in the house strengthens the bond between us, and leads to a well-trained dog that is a joy all year, not just during the bird season.

Obedience training is the foundation of hunting training, and a hunting dog should come when you call him, heel, sit, and stay. These commands also come in mighty handy when you are trying to move all your gear and two big Labs into a hotel room. Many owners don’t spend enough time on basic obedience, either because it’s not as much fun as the hunting training, or because they don’t want to fetter the dog’s free spirit. But I don’t want to share my home with a dog that is an ill-mannered nuisance.  

Life in the home presents temptations that a kenneled dog doesn’t face. Professional trainers worry that sending a dog home with the owner will lead to the dog becoming “untrained”. Bo Allen, trainer for Stealth Point Kennels in Meeteetse, tells the story of a Lab he trained and sent home with the owner. Upon being released in the house, the pup promptly retrieved an expensive, tasseled loafer. The owner didn’t want his shoes chewed up, so he whipped the pup.

“That pup never brought anything to that guy again,” Bo says. “He would retrieve for me, but not for the guy who whipped him for doing what he was supposed to do.”

An old-school pro might think “that’s why you don’t keep them in the house.” But the savvy owner who lives with hunting dogs sees daily training opportunities that reinforce skills the dog already knows, and help keep the dog from becoming “untrained.” I would have suggested that this owner gently, and without much emotion, tell the pup “leave it”, take the shoe, and give him a hard plastic chew toy, such as a Kong. That way the dog learns that holding stuff is OK, but not the boss’s shoe. He learns through positive reinforcement. If you repeat this process enough, the dog learns that “leave it” means “put that down.” It helps the dog distinguish between stuff we want and stuff we don’t want. That transfers really well to the field when your dog encounters something dead and disgusting. Learning to spot daily training opportunities helps the dog be a better hunter, and makes life at home better for everyone.

Another daily training opportunity at home is feeding time. Like most Labs, my two are total chow hounds. As soon as I moved to the cupboard where the food is kept, they both would go nuts, stepping on my feet and jumping up on the cabinet. It took a while, but I finally realized that I should master this situation rather than being a helpless victim of my own dogs. I started making the dogs sit, and wait, while I prepared their dinner. It took a few repetitions, but they learned that the quicker they behaved, the quicker they got to eat. Positive reinforcement creates a feeding time is that is no longer a destructive free-for-all. This also transferred to the duck blind, because their desire to get the bird isn’t that different from their desire to get the food. Helping them learn to control their desire helped them learn not to break and chase decoying ducks, which scares the ducks, destroys the blind, and might lead to a dog being shot accidentally.

Taking advantage of daily training opportunities keeps my dogs safer, and puts more birds on the table. But, of course, hunting with a dog is more than just getting birds. It’s a partnership, and a happy, well-trained dog makes for a joyous partnership at home and in the field. A good dog knows the rules and understands the boundaries. And a hunter with a good dog never goes hunting alone. 

How not to shoot birds

I’m putting a lot of effort, time, and expense into dog training currently. I’m really getting a bang out of working with Frank, my chocolate Lab, and seeing the results is exciting. I found a professional trainer that I am learning a lot from, and it is so satisfying when it all comes together in the field and Frank gets the chance to do what it’s all about with wild birds.

And that’s why it sucks so much when I miss the dang bird.

Since I got Frank, I have embarked on a quest to become a better wingshot. Before I had a dog on the ground it wasn’t that big a deal to me. Hit the bird, miss the bird, oh well, it’s all about having fun and my family won’t starve if I don’t bring home the pheasant. Now I see every wild bird as a huge opportunity. A guy only gets so many opportunities per season, and it’s birds that make the bird dog. I can’t throw enough training dummies to make up for lost opportunities on birds. It kills me when Frank does everything right, puts the bird up, and then bang, bang, bang, no bird; no chance to close the circle and go get the prize.

Since I don’t have the dough to fly to South America and burn a few cases of shells on doves, improving my wingshooting skills means shooting clay pigeons. I guess I could just go out to the range with a hand trap, but I’d rather do something a little more interesting, so I am drawn to the various clay pigeon games: trap, skeet, and sporting clays. Now if what I am about to say here offends some of those who are devoted to these games, I can only reply that this is one man’s experience, and I have only sampled a few opportunities to participate in shooting sports. I believe it is true that most people who are good at the shotgun sports are also good shots on birds. But I have found it difficult to improve my abilities by participating in these sports.

I shot the shotgun a lot when I was a kid, and I thought of myself as a reasonably good shot. Like most young shooters I didn’t receive a lot of formal instruction. My dad took me out to the range with the hand trap and my new twenty gauge, and I busted a lot of caps and a few clay pigeons. Nobody said much about shooting a shotgun being different from shooting a rifle, so I shot my twenty the same way I shot my .22 rifle; I closed my left eye and focused on the sights. Of course anybody who knows anything about wingshooting knows that you can never be a good shot that way. It’s fundamental in shooting a shotgun that you keep both eyes open and focus on the bird, not the barrel. Unfortunately, there was nobody around to tell me that, so I persisted in doing it the wrong way.

And the wrong way worked pretty well for me for a while.  I got a limit of sage grouse on the first day I ever hunted anything. I shot ducks okay.

Now here’s where maybe I offend those who shoot trap. I think trap was bad for me. Not because trap is a bad game, but because when you’re young, eleven or twelve, and you have clear eyes and sharp reflexes, you can become an average trap shooter by shooting the wrong way. The really wrong way. Trap offers mostly shots at gentle angles. There are not many birds at sharp right angles, and thus no birds that require a lot of lead. As I began to shoot trap, I started snap shooting. In other words I wasn’t swinging the gun with the bird. I was pointing a stopped gun at a spot ahead of the bird and pulling the trigger. Once again, everybody knows, stopping your gun is one of the greatest sins a shotgunner can commit. But I was young and fast, and I could get away with it on trap, and after fifty rounds or so of trap, it became an ingrained habit. And everybody at the trap club encouraged me, because I was breaking 22 or 23 birds out of 25 almost every time I went up to the line, which is real good for a kid. But it’s not good for a real trap shooter who expects to go 100 straight to qualify for the shoot-off to see who wins the tournament. And nobody could see that I was never going to reach that level with all the bad habits I had acquired.

Then the trap club we belonged to added a skeet range. My family started shooting more skeet and less trap, because at that club skeet was informal and only a few people shot it, as it was mostly a trap club. My dad liked the informality and the fun of skeet. The trap shooters were pretty serious and shot expensive guns made just for trap and we couldn’t afford that. The skeet shooters tended to be looser and they shot whatever guns they hunted with.

And I grew to dislike skeet, because it exposed all my bad habits. I did OK on the birds that offered the same kind of gentle angles that resembled trap, but skeet offers a lot of sharper angles, many at or near ninety degrees to the shooter. I hated those birds. I never broke them. Other, older shooters would tell me “you’re stopping your swing,” and I knew by now, through reading, that most good shotgun shots use the “swing-through” method of starting behind the bird and swinging ahead of it and then pulling the trigger with a swinging gun. I tried to do that, but it never worked. I guess I had too many other bad habits. I never broke more than 15 or 16 out of 25 at skeet. And I practically broke out in a cold sweat every time I stepped up to stations 3, 4, or 5, which offer the crossing angles. I wanted to go back to trap.

I didn’t shoot shotgun a lot after I graduated from high school. I didn’t take up the shotgun again seriously until I was in my mid-forties. The results were pretty dismal. After experiencing the pain of missing over my own dog, I decided to get serious about shotgun shooting. I was determined to break old habits, to pretend that I had never shot before, to start over completely, the right way.

But now I have a powerful learning tool at my command: the Internet. Now I can research the question “How do I become a good wingshot?” I plugged the question into Google, and in a few hours, I found the answer: spend a LOT of money.

If you really want to do it right, you travel to a famous shooting school, preferably one that has a resident gunsmith. You are fitted for a custom shotgun, and then you and your personal coach head out to the range for three or four days. Five thousand dollars ought to cover it. Plus travel, lodging, and meals. And tips.

Did I mention that I’ve already got a lot of time and money in the dog?

So, I read everything I can get my hands on about how to shoot a shotgun. The one issue that keeps coming up for me is fit. In order to shoot well, the experts say, your gun must fit you properly. One reason a lot of shooters struggle, the experts say, is that they stubbornly cling to a gun that doesn’t fit them.

“A-ha,” I say, “a-ha!” I have been clinging to Dad’s old over-under for years and it doesn’t fit me! (I suspect the reason he quit shooting it was it didn’t fit him either.) But how do I find a gun that fits?

Well, I have two other shotguns, both pumps. I need to do some testing. But where, how? I find the nearest shotgun club is 2 ½ hours away. They offer both trap and skeet. I don’t want to shoot trap, because I am afraid of falling into old bad habits, but now I can face my old nemesis skeet (especially stations 3, 4 and 5).

I load up and head for the skeet range. A few rounds later I confirm that I don’t shoot Dad’s over under well, nor my old twenty gauge, probably due to the fact that dad cut the stock down to fit a kid. I do best with my old Remington 870 12 gauge, which has been my waterfowl gun for years. I like it for waterfowl, but not for upland hunting because it’s heavy and I hate where the safety is located and I can’t seem to find it in a hurry when a pheasant flushes.

Plus, nobody shoots a pump for skeet anymore. The other skeet shooters kind of roll their eyes a little when I step up to shoot. I haven’t found the gun club to be a real welcoming experience anyway. Hardly anyone talks to me. Once somebody asks me what I do and I say I’m a teacher, and I hear somebody else say under his breath “he ought to teach skeet etiquette.” I Google “skeet etiquette” when I get home, and I find out it’s considered a breach to pick up empty shells after you shoot each station. You are supposed to just let them fall and pick them up after the entire round. Oops. Nobody told me.

I keep shooting skeet, and eventually the guys warm up to me a little. I resolve to be the oddball who shoots a pump for skeet, but I can’t help feeling a little weird. I want to fit in. Besides, I’d like to start shooting some respectable scores and “everybody says” you can’t do that with a pump. I start researching skeet guns a little, and I realize I am shooting with guys who shoot five thousand dollar guns. One guy I am friendly with, and who is encouraging me to get serious about skeet, is shooting a ten thousand dollar Kolar. My Remington cost $200.

I decide to find an inexpensive over under that fits me and allows me to fit in. I do some research and find out that an inexpensive over under is about twelve hundred bucks. The most the family budget can possibly withstand is one thousand. I start shopping for used guns. I’m looking through the over unders one day at the gun store, and I find a pretty little twenty gauge side-by-side, made in Spain, imported by BSA (now defunct). Eight hundred and fifty bucks brand new.

Nobody shoots a side-by-side for skeet. Plus it comes with only three choke tubes, none of them right for skeet. Plus the maker has gone under, and who knows if I can find skeet tubes for it. Plus the stock seems a little straight for me.

But it’s elegant and slim and light. And pretty. And the stocks on the over unders in my price range look like they were made from old railroad ties. Sold.

I shoot it OK in the field, and it turns out there are some guys who play around with side-by-sides for skeet. Plus I discover that the club occasionally has sporting clays, which I like better than skeet. It’s looser and more informal. The guys are friendlier. The shooting is more like hunting.

I keep shooting skeet too, and I can’t find skeet choke tubes, and the serious skeet shooters tell me I am handicapping myself pretty badly without the right chokes. Plus the stock on the little twenty might be (guess what) a little too straight. I should sell it. But it’s so pretty. And it’s not a bad gun to start a kid on. But if I don’t sell this gun, I won’t have much money for a new one.

This time I am convinced I have the solution: a Beretta 3901. It’s plain black autoloader with a plain plastic stock. Lots of good skeet and sporting clays shooters use autoloaders. Every kind of choke tube in the world is available for it. The safety’s in a good place. The stock has an adjustable shim so the fit can be customized. Four hundred and seventy five bucks.

This is it, I tell myself. Beware the man with one gun. I can use it for everything; skeet, sporting clays, upland, waterfowl. I will stick with this gun and learn to shoot it. Does it fit me? I still don’t know.

All this time, I am trying to learn to shoot the right way. I keep both eyes open, and I focus on the bird, not the barrel. I keep the gun swinging. I am determined to learn this new way of shooting, the right way.

I keep reading about shotgunning. I ask for help from good shooters, but the coaching leaves me a little frustrated. Everybody tells me I’m doing something different. Some say my gun doesn’t fit me. Some say it does. All last spring and summer I kept shooting and shooting. I felt like I was making progress.

Late in the summer Frank and I entered an Upland Classics field trial. This is a trial where the dog handler also does the shooting, just like in the field. On the first day I hit two birds with two shots. The judge complimented me on my shooting. I’m filled with confidence. The next day I missed five out of six. The judge said he thought the stock on my gun was too straight, as I was shooting over the birds.

I carried the Beretta all last season, and I did OK with it, but not much better than the season before. I sure missed carrying that light little side-by-side though. I kept mounting the little gun to my cheek, and every time I thought about the Upland Classic judge saying the Beretta was too straight. The little twenty is even straighter. I also remembered one of the best days of shotgunning I ever had, ducks on the river and I could not miss, it seemed. I was shooting that old Remington pump that day. The stock on the Remington is not as straight as either the little twenty or the Beretta. The thought haunted me: was that old Remington I paid $200 for twenty years ago the one that really fit me? That old pump that I was embarrassed to shoot skeet or clays with?

As the hunting season progressed, based on conversations with the best hunting shot I know, a man who does not shoot any of the shotgun games, I decided that I was going to give up skeet. I became convinced that the only helpful way to practice shooting birds is to practice just like you hunt. The artificiality of mounting the gun and calling for the bird was not right for me, I decided. Skeet shooting tends to become an end in itself. Most of the guys I was shooting skeet with rarely hunted, if at all. They were devoted to skeet, a game. I guess I could have decided to shoot skeet like I hunt, not mounting the gun before calling for the bird, and starting with the safety on, but there is a lot of pressure on the skeet range to shoot like a skeet shooter. People who wanted to practice hunting skills were not encouraged.

This spring I decided I would shoot only sporting clays, and to shoot them often. I found another club that has sporting clays twice a week, so I can get more real practice. I was determined not to worry about my score, and beating the other shooters. I only wanted to practice hunting skills, not win trophies. The first day I shot at the new club, everybody I shot with was shooting a pump. Turns out the club is having a “pump guns only” tournament soon. There is also a side-by-side tournament. “Cool,” I thought.

Most shooters were shooting the clays like skeet or trap, first mounting the gun and then calling for the bird. A few waited to mount the gun until after they called for the bird. Nobody was calling for the bird, taking the safety off, and mounting the gun, as I was. Everyone was very friendly.

My shooting definitely improved as the day wore on. I was pleased with the new club. We came to one of the last stations. It was two birds which appeared and disappeared very quickly. Mounting the gun before calling for the bird would be a tremendous advantage here. I resisted temptation, shot it the way I had vowed to shoot all stations, and missed every daggone bird. After I had missed the first few birds a very nice man, who was an excellent shot and obviously a club regular, stepped up to me.

“Look,” he said, “I know you’re a hunter, but you just can’t shoot sporting clays that way. A lot of the stations are designed to be shot with the gun mounted. You will never get to be a good clays shooter shooting the way you do.” I tried to get him to understand that I wasn’t interested in being a good clays shooter; I just wanted more birds for my dog. I could not get through to him. He couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t choose to do what it takes to break more birds and win the game.

It’s seems hard for people to remember that all these games were invented because people wanted to bring more birds home. Sporting clays, in particular, was invented by people who were tired of the conventionality of trap and skeet. But as soon as you start a tournament and offer prizes, specialized equipment starts to appear, and techniques that have nothing to do with hunting. Big money starts to show up. I don’t bear any ill will to folks who enjoy that sort of thing. But it seems a shame that when somebody new shows up, in his hunting clothes and with the only shotgun he owns, he is made to feel uncomfortable, and out of place.

This summer I am going to play with all three guns, including that old pump. I am going to shoot it all just like I was hunting. I may or may not become a better wingshot, but I am going to have fun.

Oh, and by the way, I shot that station with the two fast birds, the one the nice man said I couldn’t shoot that way, a second time that day. On the second try I cleaned it, broke every bird, shooting it my way. It felt darned good.

Wild geese: Solstice season

It began in September, as the aspen began to turn golden, and the change of season pushed the elk toward the rut. It continued through October, with the early teal, and the deer. With November comes too many decisions, too much open: late rifle elk, pheasant, late ducks, rutting mule deer. Now we are down to the last season: wild Canada geese over the frozen lake on the shortest days of the year. Now it's time for insulated boots, a thermos of hot coffee, a shivering dog, and listening intently for the gabble of geese carrying far on the cold air.

Sandhill pheasant and sharptail -- November in the Panhandle

Some people don't see the beauty of the Nebraska Sandhills. I understand; it's a dusty kind of beauty. But to me, the hills and thick grass create an austere beauty that provides contrast to the lush beauties of terrain that is easy to love.

We come here with our dogs, supposedly looking for birds. In truth, birds are only an excuse to let the wind and the grass and the sky cleanse us.

  The skies are big here, and the horizon is more than just a theory.

Those damn four wheelers

I bought an ATV a while back, which surprised some people; especially those who have heard me threaten to shoot out the tires of the next one that roared past me.

            I rationalized the purchase by telling people that anyone who frequently hunts elk solo needs all the help he can get, but the truth is I have reached the conclusion that the machines themselves are not inherently evil. Like any other machine, they are as good or bad as the person running them. Plus I got tired of fixing my jeep every time I tore the bottom out of it.

            I felt pretty conspicuous the first time I unloaded the ATV in the quiet dark of a frosty fall morning. I looked around to see if others were annoyed at the noise I was making as I started the machine up and backed it down off the pick-up bed. No one was annoyed because the others were busy unloading their own ATV’s.

            The area I was hunting is a popular spot for elk on the National Forest. One of the reasons it’s popular is because a lot of it is accessible to ATV’s. It’s also a place where I have cussed four-wheelers a lot. Most loudly I cussed a hunter who told me how he spotted an elk while cruising the roads on his four-wheeler. He shut down the machine, grabbing his rifle as he stepped off, and shot a spike.

            I don’t know why God lets things like this happen. In a just universe, people who hump the boonies day after day, slogging through swamps and blow-downs, would get the elk. Hunters who cruise the roads would always get skunked.

             I loaded my gear on to the four-wheeler and headed down the road. My headlights showed a swampy area ahead. I switched to four wheel drive and eased into the standing water. I was gratified to find that the four-wheeler putted on through without spinning its wheels like my jeep would have. When driven gently, ATV’s often tear up the trail less than conventional four wheel rigs, because they are superior four wheel drive vehicles.

It was getting light in the east as I followed the two-track around the edge of the huge meadow that marks the beginning of the area I wanted to hunt. I was trying to stay on the approved four wheel drive road, but it was getting hard to figure out what was approved road and what were illegal tracks. The Forest Service restricts motor vehicle use in the National Forest to designated roads, a restriction I support. But in other areas the forest Service does a better job of marking the approved roads. Should I have followed the newer looking tracks across the meadow? Or is that an unauthorized route? It’s frustrating when you’re trying to do the right and legal thing, but you can’t discern what it is.

Finding the road also gets difficult as new tracks form to avoid washed out areas, and the road gets wider and wider. ATV riders contribute to this problem by going around perceived obstacles. This creates more ruts, unnecessary ruts in my view. I can’t understand why people who buy a machine that will crawl over big rocks feel compelled to go around insignificant bumps in the road. When I am driving any kind of four wheel rig, pick-up, jeep, or ATV, I feel I have an obligation to avoid making new ruts.

            I drove on through the meadow, trying to stay on legal roads as best I could, and then followed a clearly marked trail into the timber. It was almost light enough to shoot now, and I was starting to think that I should get off the machine and walk. I was heading for a particular spot, the head of a draw where I had jumped a cow the previous year. I wanted to get there quickly, but elk could be anywhere in this area. Besides, I didn’t one to be one of those road-hunters who just cruise around on the four-wheeler all day.

            I parked in the trees and started down the road on foot. I stopped for a moment to glass an opening, and that’s when I heard them; two ATV’s coming up from behind me. I waited a moment as the sound of the engines got closer and then they appeared. They nodded and waved as they went by me, and disappeared across the opening.

            I had a sinking feeling I knew where they were going. I walked half a mile further down the road and discovered I was right. I found their ATV’s parked at the head of the draw I wanted to hunt.

            At the time I was mad at myself for getting off the machine too early. I could have beaten them to that draw. But now that I look back on it, I am glad that I am the kind of guy who parks the vehicle sooner rather than later. When I was a kid, hunting with my dad, he always avoided getting into any situations where he was competing with other hunters, and I like that philosophy. Trying to beat the other guy to the “good spot” makes hunting into work, and makes killing an elk into scoring points. That’s not the way I want to hunt.

            ATV’s have given ordinary guys like me, who want find the elk on their own rather than hiring a guide, and who don’t have room for a string of ponies, some enhanced opportunities for reaching the elk. With those opportunities comes the responsibility of using the tool without harming the experience. We all want to reach the elk. But when trails become highways, and we can’t hear the elk bugle over the sound of the engines, we’ve lost what we came to the woods to find. We all need to make the choice to stop the machine sooner rather than later. I found another draw that day, a good one, better than the one I was planning on hunting. I wouldn’t have found it if I had been focused on racing the other guy to the finish line.

To all the dogs I've loved before

Frank and I

My first dog was a dachshund. He was not a hunting dog, and he is worth an entire book to himself. We brought him home as a puppy when I was two, and he lived to be nine. He was lecherous and depraved. Snipper could be a loving house pet for months, and then suddenly one day without warning he would go off on a binge. My dad said that Snipper was the only dog he ever knew who could thumb his nose at you as he ran away. He would run off and eat garbage, and chase women, and fight with rivals for a lady’s affection. He was vicious in a fight, often defeating much larger dogs with his submarine technique of chewing away at the soft underbelly. He would come home eventually, reeking of garbage and combat, and collapse on the couch for a couple of days.

               The first hunting dog I ever knew was Lady. By the time we had Lady, I was old enough to go hunting with Dad a little bit, so I was probably five or so. Lady was a Lab, allegedly; she was all black, and she was a bargain dog. I think my dad paid twenty bucks for her, and she was about two years old when we brought her home. She would retrieve; I’ll say that for her. She was birdy as hell, and she loved to chase crippled pheasants, which she always killed with a bite to the neck before bringing them to hand, as a big rooster had spurred the crap out of her once. Apparently she had vowed that would never happen again.

She also loved to chase a whole lot of other stuff, including rabbits, cows, horses, sheep, deer, cars, sparrows, meadowlarks, coyotes, and tractors. Lady was all about the chase. She was not into coming when called. If she saw a jackrabbit, you might as well plan on hunting by yourself for some time. You could punish her, but you could not stop her. She caught several pen-raised pheasants before they could be shot at by the guns. She is the only dog I ever heard of who once caught a jack rabbit. (The jackrabbit could run faster, but Lady could turn quicker.)

               Lady was also psychotic. Riding in the car with her was miserable. This was in the days before anybody crated a dog, and Lady was all over the car. She tried to chase cars from INSIDE the car. She would leap from seat to seat, window to window, barking and growling and frothing at the mouth. My dad would scream at her to lie down and shut up and she would pay absolutely no attention. The car would veer from side to side on the road, nearly in the oncoming lane, and then nearly in the ditch.  Whoever was in the car with the two of them would alternately cower in their seat and then shriek with terror.  You couldn’t keep her in a duck blind either. Dad finally gave her away to somebody. I wasn’t very old, six or seven maybe. I don’t remember being sad or missing her.  I guess she didn’t have a very loveable personality.

               I wonder now if, with all her desire to hunt, if a really good trainer had worked her with an e-collar, and crate trained her, if she wouldn’t have been a good dog.

               My dad loved bird hunting, and he was having trouble finding enough to satisfy him in southeast Wyoming, so he joined a game preserve in northern Colorado, near Wellington. In this case, a game preserve is defined as a place that had pen-raised birds which could be purchased and then planted for the dog to find. It wasn’t the best bird hunting around, but it was something. I don’t know exactly how it came to be, but it was from the owner/operator of this bird farm that our next dog appeared: Brandy, the German Shorthair. Somehow the owner had steered my dad to another bargain dog. Brandy was a year old when we got him, and a completely wild animal – he had had no training of any kind. I remember picking him up at the preserve headquarters and thinking “Oh no, here we go again, another bargain dog.”

By this time, when I was seven or eight, I had been reading everything I could get my hands on about every facet of hunting. In doggy reading I was strong on Bill Tarrant, the dog columnist for Field and Stream, and James Lamb Free, who wrote Training the Hunting Retriever. Both of them scoffed at the notion of a bargain dog. The initial price for a dog, they argued, pales in comparison to the cost of food, veterinarian, and other expenses. Why be cheap about the price for a good pup, one with the breeding to become a good dog, when you’ll be feeding and caring for the dog his or her whole life?

Brandy pretty much proved the experts…well, not wrong exactly, but Brandy was a pretty good dog, considering. He pointed staunchly. He didn’t cover a LOT of ground, but he found the birds. He would go to a downed bird and find it, preventing a cripple from escaping. At the point Brandy found the dead bird, dad would break into a run, because Brandy could not be trusted around a dead bird for very long, as he would eat them. All of them. Bones, feathers, everything. Several times dad lied to a hunting partner and claimed that the partner’s bird had escaped when it had, in fact, been eaten. Preparing some of our birds for the table involved Mom doing a bit of trimming and cleaning, paring away at the tooth marks so that company wouldn’t realize their dinner had been pretty well mangled by Brandy. Some of those birds were pieced together like Frankenstein’s monster.

We had a lot of fun with Brandy, though. The shooting preserve folded, and Dad went looking for a new place to hunt. He found a place call “Highland Acres Shooting Preserve.” Dad joined it, and we went on a pen raised quail hunt with Brandy. The owner, Charlie, put out a dozen or so pen raised quail in a field, and then we got the dogs out for the hunt. Charlie wanted to hunt with us and put his dog down: Christie, a kennel accident. She was half-Lab and half German Shorthair. Charlie had known his lab female was in heat and had wanted to breed her to a good Lab stud, but his male Shorthair had jumped the fence, and a litter of cross breeds was born. Charlie gave the pups away for free, but he had to keep one that he was unable to get rid of. She turned out to be one of the best dogs he ever had. She would point, retrieve, water retrieve, ducks, geese, quail…anything.

We put Brandy and Christie down together, and they fought immediately, snarling and snapping, like dogs will with a stranger. This continued until Brandy hit a found a bird and pointed. Christie back stood him perfectly. The bird flushed and was dropped and Christy retrieved. For the rest of the day they were a perfect pair. Christy did the retrieving so Brandy’s…um…gustatory habits never surfaced. For one afternoon, on pen-raised quail, Brandy was the bird dog Dad had dreamed he would become.

Highland Acres was primarily a goose hunting club. There were pen raised birds for a few years, but Charlie eventually gave that up and focused on the waterfowl, especially geese. We hunted without a dog for a couple of years, but Dad eventually ran into a guy at the club who bred hunting Labs, and bought a pup. Heidi was our first AKC registered Lab, and I think Dad shelled out a hundred bucks for her in about 1976. I was fourteen, and I pretty much took over her training. I would take her over to the vacant lot and throw a bumper for her, and she would bring it back…the first couple of times. After about three or four repetitions, she would decide she had had enough, and take off for home with the bumper in her mouth. I would chase after her, screaming threats, but I would be unable to catch her. She would wait for me at the kennel gate wagging her tail. I was a little frustrated.

I had read in the books that you should carefully introduce a gun dog to gunfire, water, and live birds before hunting with the dog, but Dad didn’t fool with such things. He just took her hunting. We took her out to the duck blind for opening day, and when the first shot was fired, Heidi panicked and headed for the truck. We brought her back, and Dad pointed out the duck floating in the water. Heidi would wade toward the duck, but didn’t want to swim. Dad finally went and got a rowboat, forced Heidi into it, rowed out to where duck lay, and pushed Heidi out of the boat. She floundered, but she swam to the duck and grabbed it. Dad rowed for shore and Heidi followed. When her feet hit dry land, she spit the duck out. First retrieve. Not exactly textbook.

Eventually Heidi got to the point where gunfire didn’t bother her. She would retrieve, but she wasn’t very enthusiastic. She would swim out and get the duck, but she would drop it as soon as her feet hit the ground. What she really liked was snuggling close in the blind on cold days, and being petted by my brother and I. We hunted a lot with a guy who fed her Nutter Butter cookies, and she liked that part of hunting too. As she got a little older, she would only retrieve from the water. Apparently she felt that anything that fell on land could be picked up by my brother or me without having to bother her about it.

Still, by the standards of the dogs I saw at our club, Heidi was a pretty good dog. Charlie’s were better, but that was by dint of getting to hunt every day and getting to work on a lot more birds. I had read in books about teaching a dog to “blind retrieve”, that is to find a bird that the dog didn’t see fall. The books said that the dog should learn to “take a line” or follow the hand gesture of the handler and keep going in the right direction until the dog found the bird by scent. None of Charlie’s dogs would do that. If the dog didn’t see the bird right off, then you threw a rock, or an empty shell, or something in the direction you wanted the dog to go. A lot of the dogs in the club wouldn’t deliver to hand anymore than Heidi would. As soon as the dog got the bird out of the water, the dog dropped the duck and shook itself. Or the dog would run in circles around the owner while the owner begged, screamed, and pleaded for the dog to bring him the bird. Heidi was a typical “meat dog”; she would find it and bring it somewhere near your general vicinity.

Heidi was a great companion, and I loved her a lot, but she left me with a desire to learn how to really train a dog, and end up with the kind of dog that the book writers talked about. I didn’t get many chances to hunt after I graduated high school and left home, and there was no time at all for dogs. I did a hitch in the Navy, and then got involved with acting and theatre. Neither allowed room for a dog.

About twelve years ago I managed to find a steady job, and my wife and I bought a house. After the shock wore off, I started hunting again. And soon I started longing for a bird dog.

And what kind of a dog did I decide on? A bargain dog, of course! I figured I could beat the system, and make a world-beater out of a pound reject. I remembered Christie, Charlie’s Lab-Shorthair accident, and decided to try to re-create her. I started scanning dog pound listings, looking for a cross between a Lab and some kind of pointing dog. Eventually I found the website for the Denver Dumb Friends League, which had online listings for hundreds of dogs looking for a home. I kept watching, and soon…bingo! Just the dog I was looking for. A six-week-old Lab/Shorthair puppy.

I called the Dumb Friends League, and the pup was still unclaimed when they closed at 5pm on Wednesday. I took Thursday of work and drove hard for Denver, stopping only for gas. I arrived in Denver to find the pup gone, claimed by someone who was in line after the doors closed. But…they did have a similar dog, the clerk said. An English Pointer-Lab cross. Six months old, by the name of Sasha.

Of course I took her home. Six months was a little older than I had wanted, but I figured that was young enough I could still make a bird dog out of her. Of course I was wrong.  She is so terrified of loud noises, probably due to bad experiences in the past, that she can’t stand to be around gunfire. She trembles and pants and tries to crawl into my lap during thunderstorms. She has to be given a mild sedative on the Fourth of July. In addition, she has no interest in birds whatsoever.

But she is a great dog. She was a tremendous hiking companion when she was younger, absolutely tireless on the trail. She was happy to go fifteen, even twenty miles a day with horses or with four-wheelers. She learned to stay behind me when I waded in creeks while fly-fishing. She loves cats, having been raised by one.

Her biggest issue is separation anxiety. She hates to be parted from me. I picked her up from the pound in May. As I am a teacher, I was able to spend the summer with her. We were together all day every day. When fall rolled around, my wife and I built her a kennel she could stay in while we were at work. I laid down chicken wire and poured gravel over top. I set a chain link pre-fab kennel on top of the gravel, and wired the edge of the chicken wire to the chain link, put in a doghouse, and figured I was done.

She climbed out over the top.

I covered the kennel with a combination of hardware cloth and plastic safety fence. She pulled the chain link up at the bottom, pushed the chicken wire out, and crawled out.

I took six inch wide pieces of wafer board, sandwiched them around the bottom of the chain link, and screwed them together, so she couldn’t get at the bottom of the chain link. She climbed on top of the doghouse, pulled the chain link down, and crawled through a hole so small it scraped up her elbows and sides so that they bled. It must have been like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube.

At that point I quit. I decided she would have to stay in the house when I was at work. That night I came home and she had chewed a vinyl ottoman and a potted rubber planet into pieces not bigger than a dime. I found the pieces, thoroughly mixed with potting soil, in a large pile in the middle of the living room.

That was eleven years ago. Things have gotten better since then for the most part. I can now leave her in the house, trusting that she won’t shred the interior. I still must be sure that no windows are left open when I leave. I slipped up once a couple of years ago. I left a second story window open when I was packing for a camping trip and ran to the grocery. She thought I was going camping without her and pushed through the screen and leapt fifteen feet to the ground. She didn’t break anything, but she was very sore for a week or so.

The other reason Sasha never became a bird dog is I didn’t know where to find birds. As the years wore on, I started hunting with a friend who helped me find a lot more birds. Also, when my Dad died Charlie came to the funeral, and I started thinking about how Charlie is almost eighty, and if I wanted to hunt with him again, I’d better hurry up. Evidently my brother was thinking the same thing, because we both re-joined Charlie’s hunting club that year.

All of a sudden I found myself hunting pheasant, chukar, ducks and geese. Without a dog. This had to change.

Thank goodness my wife supported me getting a bird dog. I vowed this time I would do it right. No bargain dog. But I also vowed I would not spend one unnecessary penny. I wanted a good dog, and I wanted him from the first puppy. Some are able to try a dog and if he doesn’t work out, give him away and try again. I would not be able to do that, and even if I could, I wouldn’t let my kids get attached to a dog and then get rid of him. I had to get it right the first time, and I had to do it on a limited budget.

I spent a lot of time researching kennels, and I finally picked Soap Creek Kennels in Grand Junction, Colorado. I visited them, and got to know their dogs a little, and decided to get a pup from their two Chocolate Labs: Amos and Emma. After months of waiting, the pups were whelped and ready to take home. My daughter and I went down to get him. She commented he looked exactly like a football. We named him Frank.

I started basic obedience training with him immediately, and it went pretty well. Then he went through teething, and when he was finished, I started training him to retrieve. The results were appalling. Frank would not bring the training dummy back. He would run around with it for a while and then lie down and start chewing on it. This went on for most of the spring with no change. I was starting to panic. I couldn’t stand it if Frank turned out to be a good companion but not a hunting dog. I wanted him to be good, but I didn’t know how to get him there.

I finally decided to seek professional help (for Frank, not for me). A colleague at worked mentioned he had gone with a friend to watch the friend’s dog work with a professional trainer. He had been very impressed by the work the trainer had done. The trainer’s name was Bo Allen. The colleague sent me a link to Bo’s website. I looked at the prices for dog training and I blanched. There was no way I could afford this. The basic program was three months at $750 a month.

I sent Bo an email anyway. He was very helpful, and said he would work with me to keep the cost down but still do a good job with Frank. He suggested we try one month of training in August, right before the hunting season opened.

My wife – well, let’s just say I married well. My wife supports my mania for hunting and fishing, and she wanted to see Frank improve. She likes him too. It wasn’t easy, but we found a way to pay for a month.

I was determined to learn everything I could about dog training from Bo. I asked if my daughter and I could watch some of the training. He was very obliging, and said we could come visit any time.

Watching Bo work with dogs was revolutionary for me. I learned so much from him, but the main things I saw were confidence and patience. Bo doesn’t panic and get frustrated like I had. He has tools. He showed me that if the dog does it wrong, it’s not the end of the world. I was pushing for too much too fast, as if I was expecting my college freshmen to write Moby Dick. In a month he had Frank introduced to real birds, and excited about them, and he was used to the sound of gunfire and knew it meant birds. That’s enough for a six-month-old dog. Then he turned Frank over to me, and told me to take him hunting a lot, and let him chase birds and have fun. Which I did, and Frank had a great first season. He fetched ducks out of a lake, and he hunted pheasants in Nebraska. He didn’t bring the birds straight to me, but I let him run around with them al little and eventually he would get them to me. I finally got him some geese on the frozen lake the last day of the season, and he wouldn’t pick them up. I had to walk out and get them. I didn’t like that as the last retrieve of the season, but overall I thought he did pretty well.

I made financial arrangements to get Frank back to Bo the next spring. I planned on sending him up for six weeks, and finish him. When I took him up to Bo, he asked me what I wanted him to do with Frank this time. I told him my main concern was Frank not bringing birds straight back to me. He suggested that force training and getting Frank on an electronic training collar were probably the best solution.

I had been dubious about both of these for a long time, but I had faith in Bo, so I said go ahead. Again, I watched carefully during the whole process, and I quickly became a convert. Frank’s progress was so fast that after two weeks Bo suggested I take him home, as I could run him through the necessary drills to maintain what Bo had already done. It all went well, and Frank made steady progress through the summer. I ran him in our first field trial at the end of August, and he did great. He is not yet two years old, and I have more work I can do to steady and polish him, but he is already by far one of the better dogs I have hunted with, and I think he will impress the folks I hunt with.

The other day I was talking with a young friend of mine who is also hunting dog crazy. She wants a good dog very badly, and she asked me about how I found Frank. I told her about the kennel where I got him, and about Bo, and it became apparent that a twenty-year-old college student can’t afford to get a dog the way I got Frank. She has her eye on a dog that she saw when she was out hunting, a dog that lives on a farm and is ignored by its farmer owner. I started to tell her that the initial cost of a pup is far less that what she will spend on food and vet bills, but then I realized that she and that dog need each other. It’s better I have Frank now than when I was younger. Where would I be without all the bargain dogs who trained me? I wouldn’t be worthy of Frank if I hadn’t learned from the dogs in my past.