Hunting with Dogs

It goes without saying that any retriever, even those intended for upland work, must be comfortable in the water. A retriever that is scared to charge out into the water after a fallen bird will not do much good for the hunter. The best way to ensure that your dog is great in the water and to...

“A Jack of All Trades is a master of none but oftentimes better than a master of one." Yes, that is the other half of the famous figure of speech coined sometime in 14th-century England, which has since been redacted and plagiarized by teachers, bosses, and your Uncle Bob. Don’t get me wrong...

If you want to see a pheasant hunter lose his shit (yes, it’ll be a dude), watch how someone deals with a dog that suddenly decides to go into bootlicker mode. This is one of the most embarrassing and frustrating things a pheasant dog can do. With some dogs, that’s their natural mode of travel. Low...

Picking a dog is a personal decision. It’s also something that can be done with zero research, based solely on a whim or something that might have been true forty years ago. The truth is, if you look at enough bloodlines, you can probably find a dog that suits you no matter what breed interests you...

I suppose I should consider myself lucky. I’ve had bird dogs running around for almost 50 years, and up until a few years ago, only once did one of the dogs get sprayed by a skunk. That was a black Labrador retriever named Elsie, and once was enough for her. She felt the full force of the blast and...

Diehard waterfowlers almost always possess an unrealistic and overly rosy view of their duck dogs. To be fair, this isn’t a trait that afflicts only folks with a serious affinity toward mallards. Upland hunters, hound fanatics, and pretty much everyone who owns a working dog will hold a biased...

General veterinary visits aren’t cheap. The annual checkups, blood work, vaccinations, and whatever else can add up. While it’s fun to gripe about services that seem expensive, the usual stuff is a small price to pay to keep a pup healthy. Emergency veterinarian visits are a different story. If you...

Talk about being a good neighbor. Earlier this month, two State Farm insurance agents and a fishing guide in Mississippi rescued 38 hunting dogs that had become stranded treading water in Grenada Lake. Arkansas resident Bob Gist and fellow insurance salesman Brad Carlisle had traveled down to the...

I’ve wanted to train a bird dog for years. This past season, all it took was a few rough retrieves of falling through ice or slugging through hip-deep mud to realize the time had arrived. When I began consuming every bit of information I could on puppy training, I was a bit put off by one piece of...

Anyone who has raised kids understands that too much pent-up energy will lead to poor behavior. There’s a reason that grade-schoolers get recess in the middle of the day. Puppies are no different, and if you want to experience the worst a young dog has to offer, bring one home in the winter. This...

Up until my latest dog, I have always taken water introduction for granted. Since I’m a retriever guy, I’ve always had dogs that took to water with ease. I assumed that would be the case two years ago when I picked up a little black Lab we named Sadie, but she had other plans. While I assumed...

Ten years ago, I picked up a black lab puppy. I knew the prospects for Luna were unlike anything I’d ever had in a dog due to her bloodlines, and I was terrified to screw it up. With this on my mind, I figured I’d seek out some advice, so I called Tom Dokken during my drive home with my new hunting...