Posts from — October 2007

Today the wind was just shy of howling on the open prairie.  We ran 5 braces this afternoon in these cold conditions and all left the field with wind burn.  With no trees the only refuge was on the leeward side of the gooseneck horse trailer.

 It was a good day nonetheless.  All 5 braces and good wild bird contact.  The least amount of wild bird contact was one brace with 2 wild birds.  Total birds today numbered about 30.

Good dog work was had early in the day with a brace that placed my young dog Shooter as a running mate with Jason Francis’ dog 5 year old Champ.  We had a client with us today riding one of our 3 horses as we ran dogs.   We were NOT in the guiding capacity.  This client had a dog that needed some extra attention so we showed him first what a good brace looked like on state land, not block management. 

Within 5 minutes of mounting our trusty steeds Champ was found standing majestically on point … [Read more →]

As I mentioned yesterday there are a lot of factors that influence training dogs in Montana, not to mention the most obvious, genetics.

Today was a classic day afield.  Dogs of good breeding are doing well.  Those dogs that come from unknown genetic gene pools … [Read more →]

You may know that I travel to Montana every year to train clients dogs as well as my own. It’s always fun but definitely hard work.

I think often that some folks think it easy. It’s not. Wild bird populations have a tremendous impact on whether a dog will have sufficient bird contact to actually learn something.

4 years ago eastern Montana had a terrible hatch due to drought conditions and late wet snow. Chicks were impacted severely. When I arrived in August and began to condition dogs I noticed immediately that it was going to be tough.

If you have 20 dogs to train, that is 10 braces. A brace is two dogs on the ground at the same time. I have found that a brace works best when working young dogs on wild birds. Primarily because both are often inexperienced and just finding a wild … [Read more →]