Gun Dog Forum

Check out Rob Martin at TGR Gundog Kennels. He has trained and handled numerous NSTRA champions. He is about 2.5 - 3 hours north of Houston. I think his going price is $400/month + cost of birds. Real nice guy.

I have a 15 month old GSP that is completely steady to wing-shot-fall, has retrieved every bird ever shot completely to hand, and pretty well honors naturally. She reliably points birds that are still (i.e. planted, or even if simply "dropped" and they burrow up into grass on their own). She has had...

I'm glad you two had relatively good luck. This was only my 2nd wild pheasant hunt. In two days of Walk-In Hunting land only, we saw 12 quail and about 17 pheasant in Norton and Graham county with a couple of very amateur dogs (a 13 month GSP and rarely hunted (lightly trained) 2.5-year old Brittany...

Just a quick report for folks planning to hunt NW KS this fall. My brother and I spent two days of hard hunting - mostly in and around cut grain fields (milo, corn, wheat) and creek bottoms. We got into one "covey" of pheasant on the edge of a dirty, cut milo field (lots of grain available to eat) n...

That's what it's all about!

Ruffshooter wrote:
When my cousin was 6years old some 44 years ago. He used to sit down at his German Shepard's bowl and eat the Gravy Train with a spoon slurping up the gravy and all :roll: . He loved that stuff. He retired as a Marine.

Now - that's funny!!!!

If you go to the NAVHDA web site, they have a basic training book titled "The Training and Care of the Versatile Hunting Dog". It's a good primer on gun dog training, easy to understand and follow, and a short read. It's sitting right beside me as I'm typing on this forum....

To the question on with-holding water, when initially potty training a young pup, we do often pup the water up about 8:30 or 9 p.m. Of course take them outside before going to bed (say 10 p.m. or so). This can help prevent some of the mid-night whining (from the crate). If you know they've emptied t...

Responding to hard mouthed 7 month pup - two ideas to consider. First, you might have the dog retrieve some frozen quail. I would normally consider seven months too young to really train force fetch (as it can take a fair amount of pressure to "make" the dog open its mouth, hold the bird, bring it t...

A 10 week old puppy that hangs in close - - -nothing to worry about. Just keep taking it for walks. The nose and prey drive will kick in as well as their sense of independence. This is a very young pup....

I've had Shorthairs from FT lines that were scent-pointing at 7 - 8 weeks old - bred in as they say. Their pointing was top-notched, but their hunting style was very independent. At 5 months, they would be several hundred yards across the field. I recently bought a Shorthair pup from strong NSTRA li...

I've used Innotek launchers with good success. One of them started to be a little faulty on the release, so I made some modifications to tighten up the release mechanism, and it now works fine. I'd have no problem recommending the Innotek

My latest addition was a half-brother / half-sister mating that will have a pretty high I.C. Not only does she have a common grand-sire, but the mother-lines are very similar as well. I've liked what I've seen so far - but as a young pup a little to early to tell. Would like to take her back to a so...

I've got a 4' x 3' Johnny House that I use to keep a few quail in for bird dog training. Occasionally, one of the local varmints will try digging its way under-neath the Johnny House to get to the birds. All unsuccessful so far. A few weeks ago, I got the idea to lay old fireplace / burn-pile ashes ...

If there's no such thing as "too much dog" - then why do so many breeders (and certain lines of GSP's) talk about "bidability" as a characteristic of their line? Said, another way, why are some dogs known as "soft"? To think there are not extremes of "soft" vs. "head strong" dogs is not being truthf...

Sounds like the start to a potentially great "Family Tradition"!! Hopefully the young ones enjoyed themselves. Sounds like you had some decent action.

Congratulations, Jim. I had my daughters help plant birds and accompany me to hunt tests. Now at nearly 20 years old, they still enjoy shooting targets and love my new Shorthair puppy. Let them spend time with you doing something you can both enjoy!!!

Very nice for a 1 year old pup.

I recently bought the TT multi-sport 3 G2 from GDS. I've been happy with it so far - although limited use. My last e-collar was a different brand, that had button sticking problems after a couple of seasons, so I decided to give TT a try. So far no complaints - but not enough real use to have a stro...

We trained our Brittany to relieve himself in one designated spot in the yard to keep from killing the grass. It was intense potty-training for 2 - 3 weeks. My wife and son actually took the lead on this (mostly my wife). This was like potty-training a child. They would literally make the dog stay i...

I've been told, and experienced to some extent myself that the Greif line of GSP's are pretty tough. As one seasoned field trialer told me, "they're as tough as shoe leather". I bred a Moesgaard (Clown / Rusty / Uodibar's) female to a pretty well line-bred Greif male. The female I kept from the litt...

We completely house broke a Brittany - which we got at 14 weeks old - and it took nearly six weeks to get him to the point of zero accidents. I'm now 2.5 weeks into potty training a GSP pup that we got at 8 weeks of age. A large part of potty training - is the dog "training you" to watch its signs t...

We have a brittany that is an inside dog, but in the field he is very focused on finding birds. The nice thing about keeping a pup in the house is that you have so many opportunities to interact with it in a positive way - you get free training time. For the Brittany - he displayed a significant des...

I prefer PDJ as well - as it is fairly informative and focused on pointing dogs. Another magazine I've enjoyed, but not seen mentioned here is the NAVHDA magazine. The NAVHDA magazine provides some diversity similar to GD.

As for the manual launchers with the pull string - if you are starting a young pup - you can never be sure where the pup will be when he points the bird. So the combination of steadying the dog and working around to the pull string can be a challenge. The remote launchers are expensive - no doubt - ...

The photo above is very similar to the one I just built - except I've also included a plywood roof mounted on 2x4's.

Thanks, Ken.

I just built one using 2 x 4 treated pine frame set up in 5' x 12' sections on 2.5' centers. For the floor, I used treated 1x4's w/ about a 3/8" gap so the pee would run through fairly easily. The gap is not big enough for puppy feet or big turds to fall through, but with a slight slope designed in ...

Doing some pedigree research and I'm having a hard time finding the dam of Monarch's Arrak Vom Enzstrand - which is full litter mate to Monarch's Krinka v. Enzstrand. I know the sire is DC Erick Vom Enzstrand, but I can not find the dam. This is going back to the '70s - so I don't know if there's an...

Just curious if this worked out for you. I just recently noticed that M'Credible Gun Dogs has a bitch with Dixieland Luke appearing 5 times in the fourth generation.