suhweet

I can't complain too loudly, but me and two other guys from work were treated to a weekend out at Highland Hills Ranch in north central Oregon. I love Oregon from when I used to live out there and I don't remember how exactly I first heard about HHR, but I was pretty excited to have the opportunity.

I am also a little skeptical about places like this -- skeptical about places that host British-style driven shoots (because they are 'shoots' not 'hunts'), and skeptical about places that claim four species of native birds and no bag limits. Even before they issue you your hunting license, it's obvious that HHR is a preserve and that these are therefore not truly wild birds in the sense of entirely self-sustaining, indigenous populations -- even though pheasant, chukar, Valley quail, and Hungarian partridge are all native to Oregon. As you can see from their website, some of their 3000 acres is pretty manicured terrain. I went imagining I'd shoot a couple of birds quick and then just take photographs. But shortly after we got out the first morning, I had to leave most of my prejudices behind.

Let me get the easy stuff out the way: this is plush. And even though you genuinely hunt pretty hard six hours a day, you're leaving fatter than you came. The facilities are fabulous and the food exquisite. I know that if the chef's parents, his kid's grandparents, didn't live in the area he would have been hired away many many times over. And this is a huge part of the HHR experience: if I remember correctly, the owner's family were five-generation farmers (which shows in not just the cherry orchards, but even how native habitats have been encouraged), and the idea of owning and operating a facility like this comes from love and passion. Dinner conversations about either windfarm operations and the mixed benefits for farmers and residents alike, the cherry crop, or the state of the mule deer population all made it clear that this was an operation being operated for the long haul by folks who genuinely care about the place they've built because their familes have lived there for generations.

As for the bird-stuff: we drove up to the lodge and shooed pheasants off the road in the process. In some ways, not exactly inspiring as to what the actual hunting might be like, but nevertheless a good sign that there are apparently plenty of birds hanging out on the grounds. I did manage to extract that the native birds were supplemented with release birds to ensure that there is consistency in clients' experience -- but I couldn't tell you how or when or in what numbers those birds were being released. And that's because a) it never felt like you were on a put-and-take kind of place, b) because there were none of the usual behaviors of farm-raised game birds, and c) I didn't hear or smell any evidence of ATVs sneaking around dumping birds in fields. I have no idea the actual numbers or distribution schedule, but it became pretty clear that HHR not only manages their terrain really well, but that 'native' might actually mean exactly that for a significant percentage of the birds a client will encounter. The owner expressed genuine surprise at how some of the roosters hadn't fully colored-up yet and speculated they were from a second hatch that year. I might be a sucker, but I believe him. Heaven knows, that in terms of how quickly a pheasant population can establish itself, one need only look at the history of pheasant introduction in OR and WA to see that Oregon, in particular, went from 0 birds in 1881 to a 75-day season in 1892 with an estimated 50,000 birds taken.

At 3,000 acres, there is plenty of space to allow multiple groups to hunt in multiple locations without shooting out the bird populations. As Dario, one of the guys I was with, said -- there were just enough birds. Meaning that they were both plentiful, but neither predictable, nor too many. And heaven knows, we missed our share and they got wilder as a result. There are essentially three different environments at HHR: plateau hunts up on the hills surrounding the ranch in low grass and sagebrush, primarily for Huns and chukar; milo field hunts for all four species of native birds; and creekbed hunts that could feature sagebrush, reeds, and waist-high grasses and, again, all four species. The first two pictures in this post are from our first morning's plateau hunt featuring the fabulous Tex on point, and then Dario, Scott, our guide, and Bailey & Mel (the GSP and the English cocker). This picture is from our milo field hunt -- and features Reuben and Otis (the GSP and the English cocker), cooling off halfway through our hunt.

As can be inferred, many of the guides at HHR use a combination of pointing dogs and flushing dogs to get the birds located, flushed, and retrieved. In this instance, Scott uses a mixed team of pointers and GSPs to locate and pin the birds and then a spaniel to flush the bird. As an aside, for someone used to preparing dogs for hunt tests and field trials, watching the bird flush and then all three dogs break on the shot took a little getting used to -- but as Scott said, if you have a bird that is clearly shot, gliding off the side of a hill, it can put a dog at a serious disadvantage for a blind retrieve if it stands through the shot and waits to be sent. And without wanting to brag too much about our shooting prowess, if all three hunters are able to bag a single bird each from a covey, then it's pretty cool to have three different dogs bring back a bird each. This final picture has my other friend, Ian, shooting a chukar over the lovely Fancy during our final hunt along one of the creekbeds below.

It was a great weekend filled with some miraculous shots (by Ian and Dario, I might add), some enthusiastic dogwork (including watching one of the cockers literally hip-check a GSP out the way to get a bird for the retrieve), good company, and excellent food.

building an Evil Empire

It's been a wicked busy 6 or 7 weeks here at Team Regal Vizsla. The weekend after Momo and I got back from Arizona, the day after I put up my last post here, I chaired our Vizsla Club of Central New England Versatility Day up at Sharpe's Farm. As might be imagined in these economic times, it was a smaller entry than last year -- which was actually good because we felt less rushed in the heat throughout the day! Congratulations go to Mike & Kim's Kyler for finishing up her Versatility Certificate requirements!

A month later I chaired our VCCNE hunt test (although none of it would have been possible without a supremely well-organized secretary, Stephanie) out at Crane WMA out on Cape Cod. This weekend was actually a first for the northeast in that we held a double-header weekend with our friends at the Mayflower GSP Club -- and so we had testing in both morning and afternoon on both days, giving JH & SH dogs and handlers the opportunity to potentially start and finish their titles in a single weekend. With hunt test entries, it seems, down generally across the country, the two clubs wanted to try and create an even bigger incentive for folks to come out to what is a beautiful grounds out in East Falmouth. While we had to limit the number of SH/MH entries, especially, to ensure things stayed on schedule, overall the entire event went really well. Not sure how Stephanie managed it, but somehow this year we avoided any pre- or post-hurricane weather that has thwarted us in the past. This picture is of one of the nicest dogs I saw all weekend, a beautiful Brittany named Cassie, who moved beautifully and handled like a dream even though, for a variety of reasons, she had to be handled by a relative stranger.

Congratulations are in order again to Mike & Kim, but this time for Cedar finishing up with SH requirements! It's hard to imagine that two years ago we were all wondering if he'd keep one of his feet after being shot (not by them, I might add) in a hunting accident. He might be a little gimpy from time to time, but he does the job really nicely! Well done, C-Monster!

In between those two events, I also started work on building my own Evil Empire. It's taken a few years to make great connections like these, but I have been blessed to find a friend with some property upstate who has a shooting preserve license and is willing to let me install four portable johnny-houses on his property so that I can train my dogs on habituated, if not actually wild, quail. I saw the huge difference in the quality of the birdwork when using birds like this (as opposed to hand-planted birds fresh out the bird bag) when I was out in Arizona with Bill Gibbons -- and essentially copied his basic design using 55gal drums as the basic shell. Each drum can comfortably house 12-15 quail and, using the awesome Less Mess feeders and waterers, the birds can easily stay for a week (if not two) without needing a top up -- and you don't need to go inside the johnny-house to replenish the food and water. Finding decent birds that will both fly and recall, that's a whole other story.

Jozsi came back from Arizona last week looking fantastic; I wrote about the decision-making process to fly him home over at Living with Birddogs. It sounds goofy but I realised how much I missed him the instant I saw him bounce around in his crate at Newark airport as soon as he recognized me. This dog only knows how to do everything with the utmost enthusiasm. I haven't had the chance to run him on birds yet, but he has already demonstrated a voluntary honor on Momo that he's never done before. It's already been a busy fall with hunt test judging assignments as well, and we're headed up to the Nutmeg GSP Club hunt test this weekend to both judge and then give Mr. Enthusiasm his first run off a horse since coming home.

I'm also pleased to say that I just got my first article published online in a non-blog by the nice folks over at Strideaway. I was flattered to be asked to write about my month out in AZ with Bill Gibbons and I hope folks enjoy it. Coincidentally, though, in that piece I wrote about Bill's experience and skill in identifying just the right amount of 'leverage' to apply to a dog in a given situation and made an analogy to walking horse bits in the process. In the brand new issue of Eclectic Horseman, Martin Black has a short piece about bit selection -- and how he distinguishes between a 'signal bit' and a 'leverage bit':

A leverage bit meant to amplify the pressure or pain from our hands pulling on them whereas a signal bit is meant to amplify a signal from our hands. Here again the biggest difference could be just a different presentation with the same equipment. (p.5)

I mention it because what Martin is describing is how I understand Bill to be using the e-collar. Why is this important? Any training tool can be abused, but once you see a tool being used subtly, it's then also possible to see that tool in a much richer light. For example, if you can only understand an e-collar as a 'shock collar,' then for better and for worse all you can do is 'shock' a dog with it. And for a lot of dogs, that's going to more than plenty to turn them off.

here's to trial dogs

With Jozsi still in AZ for the remaining six weeks of dog camp, and with the field trial season coming upon us here in the northeast, I wanted to share a few historical gems about why trial dogs are in many ways the pinnacle of the bird dog world. I am not trying to recreate the 'why trial dogs can't/don't/aren't hunting dogs argument' because, frankly, I think it's something of a disingenuous argument akin to saying that a squash racket makes a useless tennis racket (and vice versa). I was going through several classic books yesterday and came across a few sentences that also help illustrate this relationship. In the precursor to his Field Trials: History, Management, and Judgement, Bill Brown (the editor of the American Field) stated succinctly:

The field trial conception of the ideal bird dog is well defined, rational, sound. To measure up to field trial standards a bird dog must possess speed, range and style. He must be endowed with stamina and a good nose. He must display initiative; he must manifest method in his negotiation of the terrain. He must exhibit character, animation, independence, intelligence. His work must be incisive, merry. He must show intensity and steadiness on game. He must handle. The ideal bird dog, in short, is the finished product, a high-class, thoroughly broken performer which excites constant admiration by the excellence of his work. -- William F. Brown, The Field Trial Primer, (American Field: Chicago, 1934), p. 9; my emphasis

And who would doubt that a truly broke dog, willing to stand steady-to-shot, who will stop-to-flush, and honor her bracemate without command, is both an asset and no less appealing to the hunter in her class and style on birds. Incidentally, the picture above is of Leon's Star in full flight -- as you can tell, a great little dog full of personality and energy. While we have gotten used to the idea of a three-hour National Championship (because for pointers and setters, beyond the two-hour mark working relatively open fields for quail is where the dogs of the highest athletic prowess shine through), I did come across a provocative comment that I hadn't considered before when thinking about some of the differences between successful hunting dogs and trial dogs. As renowned trainer, handler, and judge, Elias Vail put it:

The dog that can “go all day” is not a convincing proof of field trial material. The question is “How much can he show in a comparatively short time that he is down in public competition?” -- Ella B. Moffit, Elias Vail Trains Gun Dogs, (Orange Judd: New York, 1937), p. 182

On the one hand, the point is that the trial dog has an intensity that the hunting dog may not and need not, at least in terms of the demonstrated performance that is required for trialing. On another hand, that intensity also has practical application. As Howard Lytle wrote in his own celebrated training book:

This thing of pinning game, especially certain kinds of game such as the grouse or the prairie chicken or the pheasant, is most successfully accomplished by quick, decisive action – speed arrested so suddenly that the game’s only inclination is to squat before the onslaught… A dog that rushes to his game and then suddenly applies the brakes doesn’t give his game a chance to think and plan out a method of evading pursuit. -- Howard Lytle, How to Train Your Bird Dog, (A.F. Hochwalt: Dayton, OH, 1934), pp. 190-1

I have to admit that I am eager to see the final version of a picture taken by Nancy Whitehead that I was lucky to see last fall in a proof version. If there was a picture to illustrate Lytle's two previous sentences -- a quick decisive action and sudden arrested speed -- it will be 'The Slam.' Put slightly differently, while hunting we may get to see the almost sublime moment that our dog goes from liquid to solid, from hot, dynamic motion to absolute stasis, but in a trial hopefully everyone else will see it, too. Unlike hunting, trialing is by necessity a public activity -- even if the only three other suckers that see it in the inevitable driving rain are the two judges and your bracemate. As Horace Lytle wrote elsewhere in his book:

And when the thrill of your first win surges through your very soul, it will mean many, many times more to you that than any mere private shoot can ever possibly mean. The latter may some day begin to pass from the picture; but the vivid memory of your first field trial win never will fade. -- Lytle, p. 176

Wins or not, I can tell you that I remember Jozsi's two best runs clear as day. I also remember judges' compliments even when he's been picked up early -- and I would still take flawed genius over passing mediocrity any day. To be fair, I also remember Jozsi's first hunted bird -- and a fair number of the various assorted finds and retrieves on grouse, woodcock, and pheasant that Momo has pulled off with aplomb. But the fact is that the trial format with its fixed time and standards makes it possible to remember the narrative flow of an entire 'event'. Each bird find is a paragraph, framed by bold, deliberate casts to cover; placements and ribbons add exclamation points. In conclusion, as Horace Lytle states:

For after all is said and done – and all beliefs to the contrary notwithstanding – the ideal field trial dog is the gun dog of your dreams. Notice I use the word “ideal.” Not all field trial competitors fulfill the meaning of the word; hence not all of them would make good gun dogs. -- Lytle, p. 171

Why is public performance necessary? Because it is the process of judgment that identifies the strongest dogs in the breed -- and by 'strong' I mean the genetic sum of intelligence, strength, and courage that Frank LaNasa has written eloquently about. The best analogy I've heard for describing the necessary relationship between field trial dogs and hunting dogs is between Formula 1 racing cars and every other car: few people have the time, money, or expertise to really drive a Formula 1 race car (and while you could drive it down to the shops, the amount of groceries you could really bring home is limited), but every regular car on the road has benefited from the technology developed for Formula 1 racing -- steering, suspension, tires, etc.

However, and this is a strong 'however', trialing identifies the strongest dogs in a breed and in their specific game. While every litter will have a cross-section of abilities -- and not every puppy bred from a National Champion at Ames will turn out to be an all-age champion -- if one is looking for an energetic, stylish dog to hunt grouse, one probably shouldn't be looking at dams and sires that excelled in wide-open prairie trials. However, once one has narrowed down the particular game that one enjoys, it behooves us to think about pursuing a puppy from parents that have succeeded in that particular game - -but which are also the product of a long-running, objective breeding program. I have a good friend, too, who will never trial his dogs, who only occasionally breeds outside his own pool of vizslas to ensure genetic diversity but does so to dogs he has seen and admired -- whether they had field trial paper titles or not. He prides himself on having raised 8 generations of Master Hunter-titled dogs, dogs which will he will guide with throughout the season in front of clients -- and which will turn in a finished performance that will leave those clients hopefully more than merely satisfied. My point is simply this: his dogs also have to turn in a public performance and that to ensure his success, he breeds to the best dogs he's seen that demonstrate similar kinds of inspired, public performance.

Much of the friction between 'hunters' and 'trialers' is the result of ego getting caught up in an unclear distinction between ethics and aesthetics. Jim Tantillo has written a great, succinct piece about the difference between these as it is mis-applied to 'hunting ethics.' Although we might mistakenly frame an argument in terms of 'better,' 'superior' or 'best,' the vast majority of the time what we are describing is our preference for 'how' a particular game is played. (W.B. Hyrum has a great related piece at the Foster Award site on genetics, how we create self-fulfilling prophecies, and how our language fails us.) As an example, I have several of Brad Harter's great National Championship DVDs, but if push came to shove, I would probably have to say that as awesome an all-age performance as Gary Lester's Snowatch turned in in 2008, I would probably be more at home with horseback shooting dogs. The best dogs for me are not the best dogs for Colvin Davis. And so, as the new trial season comes upon us -- whether we run All-Age American Field setters, NSTRA Brittanies, or AKC vizslas -- let's be grateful for the great dogs ahead of us and keep an eye out for the best ones to come.

Dog-Camp: Part Four: Chicken-Shit

Jozsi is starting to look like he actually knows what he wants to do, but hasn't quite reined himself in yet. Over the last year, I've been trying to figure out why he started flagging on some birds and why he would suddenly come un-broke (and try to rip out birds). And while this post is largely about our first attempts to bring him back, it's also about why professionals can be a real asset to amateurs: first, because they should have experience and, second, because your dog is not 'their dog' -- and they don't carry all the emotional baggage about our pets that we do.

This is not to say that professional trainers benefit from being cold-hearted, or callous, or cruel -- but it is to say they can be more objective with your dog than you probably can. And I imagine this is more prominent with some breed owners than others -- I'll even go as far as to say that I imagine there may be a higher percentage of vizsla owners who use their dogs' 'soft' reputation as an excuse not to enforce or maintain a certain standard of behavior. I don't think I'm one of those, but getting Jozsi broke and quitting his flagging seem to be related -- and that may be because I have been chicken-shit. (Before we get into the meat of it, here's a gratuitous double rainbow picture.)

I wish I had known about the West method before I started training Jozsi -- because if I'd known how to establish and build upon a solid skill foundation earlier, it would have been a smoother transition from talented Derby dog to reliable broke dog. But I didn't -- and I knew I had done some things with Momo that now I just cringe thinking about, and so I tried to merely channel Jozsi's huge natural ability. And so here is where we find ourselves.

When Jozsi had grabbed birds in the past, I had shocked him pretty good when he did that -- but I wasn't entirely clear what I'd do next. I'd also get paranoid that I'd shock him too much, and so would often switch to trying something else. Ironically, though, it seemed as though after I'd given him a dressing down, he come back just as fired up, but solid as a rock... and so the flagging did not seem to be related to the pressure of the discipline. But being nervous about letting him repeat a mistake (and having limited training resources), I wouldn't repeat the opportunity.

Now that we've completed two cycles with Jozsi, I feel more comfortable sharing what we've been doing with him. I should say that he is broke on pigeons, although he would still periodically flag even with them in plain sight (until I got in front of him). Along with several other dogs, we've taken Jozsi out to one of the quail johnny-houses, released 6-8 birds, and turned him loose. The following is a synthesis: he would run over the first couple but would stop-to-flush nicely without correction, then point one with a strong tail (which I blanked) -- but then we'd keep going and even send him after birds he'd just stopped-to-flush on. If he flagged, I sent him on until he either pointed staunchly, bumped it and stopped-to-flush, or went it to grab it. If he tried to grab it, he would get shocked -- but just enough to stop him in his tracks (and not to make him squeal, yelp, or come back to me). And we would keep going.

Now, Bill would tell me when to stop (in part so we didn't get into some kind of non-productive cycle) -- but more importantly, he wouldn't let me stop too soon. And that's one difference between a pro and an amateur. Where I imagine many of us amateurs cringe or get frustrated at a bird that isn't pointed, but is either bumped or flushes wild in front of a moving dog, a core element of the West method is that the bird teaches the dog. While a dog that learns how to catch hand-planted birds can become a nightmare, ripping a bird out isn't necessarily bad if you can correct him just enough to stop that action (but not make him scared of birds). If the dog either stops-to-flush or gets a hard point (that earns a flush, a gunshot, and a pat on the back), he'll know that the bird was there and that will hopefully firm him up. But Bill's other general practice (which I've seen him successfully apply to a dog that was blinking) is to keep on with a task till it's done right and the dog can be praised. (There are obvious caveats and exceptions -- and keep in mind that Bill believes that the more stress or force a dog experiences, the less stylish it will appear.)

*******

Vizslas vs. Setters

As great as the boys look here, I have to admit that especially when you consider the body-weight to power ratio, Jack + Jill pull like fiends. There is no let-up for the 45mins we're out and they love roading from the ATV. I don't know much about setters, but I'm guessing their intensity might come from their father. 8-)

Dog-Camp: Part Three: Revenge of the Nerds

It doesn’t feel like there’s any major news to report here – although there have been a few more milestones. Most of the dogs will graduate shortly from being broke on pigeons and will then begin applying that knowledge to quail and chukar. Here's a picture of Bill flushing a carded pigeon in front of Tucker.

I should say up front that I have never hunted wild quail or chukar – and by ‘wild’ I mean a population that is self-sustaining in a given area (and which, in effect, have never been handled by humans). I have hunted wild woodcock and ruffed grouse – and living in a state where pheasant are largely stocked for public hunting, I would nevertheless make the argument that you can still tell the difference between a bird that has been on the ground one hour, three hours, or overnight. (Mark Coleman at Wingshot has a brief, but interesting post on the subject.) Rather than an attempt to build a soapbox, this is a segue into saying that Bill + Leon + Harold have an entire course set up with johnny-houses of birds, a course that if need be is large enough to accommodate a one-hour horseback stake.

The birds are bought from a gamebird dealer and brought up to camp. They then spend a minimum of three weeks getting acclimatized to the johnny-house and the environment, understanding that the house will offer them safe refuge, food, and water. Over a certain period of time, increasing numbers of birds are let out of each johnny-house – and while they might forage for a while, the birds generally return to the safety of the house each afternoon, called in by their remaining covey mates. In effect, after their initial encampment in their johnny-house, the quail and chukar are never handled by humans and acquire their own quotidian habits and schedule. And they don’t sit around for any blundering dog or human.

This picture is simply a illustrative request: a wild iris (albeit backlit by the arriving dawn).

I ran Momo from a horse two days ago – Bill’s fabulous Diamond, a horse with great feet and balance despite rocky Arizona soil – and watched him first have to stop-to-flush on a pair of quail, then barely establish a point on a log as I quartered back towards him just in time to watch a half-dozen chukar bail out of there (mercifully, one remained which I was able to flush and fire my blank gun on), and then watched him stop-to-flush on another quail. And while only one other dog we ran that morning established a point on a bird, it made me wonder how dogs filter out the ambient smells of one region and pinpoint the smell of game birds. Or how a bobwhite quail raised in Arizona might smell different from a bobwhite raised in Pennsylvania. (Or for that matter how a blue scaled quail raised out on Long Island might smell different from a native Arizona scalie.) All I know is is that Momo is a generally cautious dog who hates to bump birds – and he’s always been a quick learner. We’ll see how quickly he rebounds from these insults to his diligence.

I forget if I mentioned that Momo blew a pad during his first attempt at roading from an ATV two weeks ago – but he still impressed folks with his commitment to hunting tripod style while he rehabbed his foot. In the meantime I’ve been roading Jozsi with a variety of running mates, even getting up to the full octet on the ATV. But this afternoon was the first time I got to take Momo out again (with Jozsi, Jack, Jill, Saddle, Freckles, Bull, and Speck: two vizslas, two pointers, one GSP, and three setters). And they were just having a ball, pulling against their harnesses, and enjoying the cool, relatively damp air as it slid over them. The only nervous point is noticing if one or other of them has to go to the bathroom – and I apologize for this scatological observation in advance. It is generally one or other of my boys, in part because they are house dogs. Which means that they are accustomed to being let out to go to the bathroom, and the idea of potentially stepping in their poop in their kennel, or peeing where they might lie down, is anathema to their normal existence. And so while they have acclimatized to kennel life here, neither of them has gotten used to going to the bathroom on a stake-out. Being taken off a stake-out to work birds, or being taken out to go roading, therefore gets them to an appropriate psychological time and space for them to go the bathroom. Which means that I road my boys on the front sets of harnesses so I can keep an eye out for the first clues that they will need to stop (and so I will need to brake).

My apologies for the graphic detail – but it’s funny the things you notice.

Dog-Camp: Part Deux

It’s been a wild few days here at dog-camp watching Bill (and his two helpers, Leon and Harold) work dogs. I hope some day that I’ll be able to read dogs as well as these guys and know when to push through and when to back-off. I’ve seen Bill literally get one dog that was blatantly blinking birds all fired up and staying steady-to-shot in 30mins. And we ran that little dog again yesterday and he was all business. To celebrate here's a gratuitous scenery shot.

But here are a couple of neat things I’ve seen that just make sense: one related to honoring, the other to handling your dog as you get in front to work a bird. What I’m going to describe will make a lot more sense if you understand that the Bill West method – as practiced by Bill Gibbons, Dave Walker, Maurice Lindley, and others – begins with the foundational skill of ‘stop-and-stand-still’. I am sure that I will write more about the how, when, and why of this as the month goes on, but let’s assume that this is the first thing you’re actually going to teach your dog.

Initially the dog comes to understand the cue from the ‘no-hurt collar’ (as Dave Walker calls it) to stop-and-stand-still – at which point you begin to overlay the e-collar as the cueing method so that you can continue to work the dog without a checkline. As the dog gets more experienced, you add more scenarios and cues (such as a bird that flushes in front of it, or their own initiated point) – but you are still expecting the dog to stop-and-stand-still. At the point that a dog understands the cue from the ‘no-hurt collar’, Bill begins to bring less-experienced dogs ‘behind’ more experienced dogs. Whenever the more experienced dog is cued to stop, or points the training bird, the less-experienced dog is stopped with the collar cue when it has a view of the scenario. And while you are building the less-experienced dog’s self-discipline to stop-and-stand-still, you are also keeping it excited by letting it see a bird in flight. Depending on your timing, you are also, however, prepping the dog to honor and/or stop-to-flush – so that by the time the dog is recognizing the e-collar cue to stop, you can turn the dog loose and have these kinds of scenario not be novel to them when, or if, you need to use the e-collar.

As folks who read this blog know, I am trying to work Jozsi through some flagging issues. Again, because I haven’t recognized a pattern to the ‘when’ and ‘where’, there doesn’t seem to be an obvious reason why – although I suspect that me sending him mixed messages somewhere however unknowingly around the age of 18mos is largely at fault. But I did want to share this observation.

Bill said one thing really interesting to me after he saw me work Jozsi the first time -- that I was handling him and the birds like I didn't trust him, that I was handling scared. Which in a lot of ways, he's right on about -- and that may be adding to whatever anxiety is making his tail wag in some situations. And so this is what he told me to do: when Jozsi points, I should get up to him as quickly as possible, jog if necessary, concentrate on getting the bird in the air, fire the blank gun immediately, and without looking him directly in the eye, walk back to him slowly and calmly and to one side, pet him, style him up, and move on. So, try to minimize what might be uncertain and/or confrontational body language, be assertive and exciting about getting the bird in the air to keep the dog jazzed, but don't make them wait longer than absolutely necessary to get the birdwork done.

And if you have to kick around, do it vigorously; Bill even told me to use whatever the loudest gun/cartridge combo I have. At that time, I was trying to use up an old box of .22shorts in my NEF; tomorrow, I'll go back to the Alfa and the Ramset nail-gun cartridges. As he said, the excitement should be in front of the dog and the dog should be getting amped up by it.

dog camp

I haven’t really posted anything up here in the last two weeks about where me and the boys are – in part because my personality doesn’t like to get its hopes up too much and get ahead of itself, even when I’m just really excited about an opportunity and the possibilities it might afford me and my dogs.

And so, it’s time for disclosure: I am in Arizona. After a few calls back and forth with Bill Gibbons over the spring just to catch up (but in which he’d tease me about coming out to work dogs with him again), I took a month off from work. And drove out from NYC last week to beautiful eastern Arizona with the boys in tow. I’m not sure Bill had any idea I was quite this crazy – but my gratitude goes out to him, my wife, and my colleagues at work for giving me this opportunity. Leaving aside the various specific issues I’d like to take care of with Jozsi, I just want to be better for my dogs. They give us so much, forgive us so much, and ask very little it seems – except for the joy of hunting birds with us.

And so we’re up in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona at 9500’ feet with huge meadows to train in, elk and antelope, the smell of pines, and wild mountain irises everywhere. For someone used to the tight spaces of the northeast, the heat and humidity, it feels like a small piece of heaven. While we haven’t had any precipitation the last couple of days, it seems the usual weather routine is for sunshine with afternoon showers that help keep the humidity and the dust down. We generally get up around 5am, have a gentle breakfast, and are working dogs by 7:00am; we work dogs till around 12noon, and then put up the dogs and feed them their daily meal. Generally we sit around for the height of the afternoon: a couple of the guys who’ve been helping Bill out for summers will go fish, or take a horse ride, or road the dogs that didn’t get worked that day.

Here's a picture of Bill roading 8 dogs at once. The dogs come to love it -- and what you can't tell in the picture is that Bill is riding in neutral and didn't even engage a gear on the ATV for another half-mile or so. You can see his and Tamra's three 'little dogs' -- Bella, Lucy, and Purdy Girl -- riding right behind him. They love the ride almost as much as the dogs in the harnesses.

It’s been a few days of firsts: the first time my dogs have been worked on pigeons, first time they’ve been roaded from an ATV, which they’ve dealt with really nicely along with being in a kennel with 30 or so other dogs of all shapes and sizes (and not with their dad the whole time). They seem to have adjusted pretty well to the warmth and elevation pretty well. Bill’s got a pretty good idea of what we need to work on with my younger dog – and so, as much as I’d like to leap into running him off a horse, it’s good to have a sensible game plan. I’m just excited to have someone who actually knows what he’s doing literally looking over my shoulder and educating me as much as we are the dogs.