Question: I have a young Brittany Spaniel that I am training myself. This is my third dog, all Brits and all trained by me. My first dog was truly a learning experience, due to the fact that I was a complete novice and made many mistakes. I got a lot of bad advice from a few self-appointed experts who I found out later had only trained a couple of dogs themselves. The second dog was trained by going to a local group seminar. Or maybe I should say, in spite of going to a group seminar. The seminar leader had no lesson plan or direction to the class but it did provide some bird contact for the pup. I know I need some help but am reluctant to spend money on a lecture-type seminar with twenty to thirty other trainers for three days, and I don't want to send the dog away for three months. I have heard many good things about your methods and that you are a no-nonsense trainer who tells it like it is. What advice or help can you give me?
Dean T., Fernda
Answer: You sound like an intelligent person who has learned the hard way that there are more opinions and bad advice available than facts when it comes to dog training. I am amazed at the marketing wizardry involved in selling a three-day seminar as a way to train your dog. The best part of the wizardry is how many of the participants come away not knowing that they have been fleeced. Twenty dogs times $450 equals $9,000. Not bad for three days of lecturing. I occasionally run into someone who has attended one of these gatherings and wishes to expound on how much was learned and how valuable it has been to his dog. That is, until I start to debunk some of the myths involved. Like a $1.50 piece of nylon rope sold for $15-$20 as the next Miracle Lead. Or a silent method to train a young novice dog to hold point and be mannerly when on birds. Or how a horseback field trial trainer from the Southwest can advise a Michigan grouse hunter on how to train his dog for hunting in thick, northern woods-type cover. Most of what they are doing can be had for a lot less money by buying their video. At least then you can hit rewind to hear it again. You have been there. How many birds were shot over your dog? How many hours did you and your dog spend in the field on birds, with the ‘pro'? I get a bigger kick out of reading outdoor writers, who probably got the lecture for free providing they had a story published about it, talk up the program when they are rank amateurs themselves, as are most of the participants. Otherwise, you wouldn't spend that kind of money, sitting in the stands with your dog.
I had a fellow sign up for one of my seminars who had been to one of these group seminars. His dog was over two years old and would not take direction if other dogs were present, would not hold point on birds and would not obey him in hunting situations. He explained to me that it would take two more trips to the ‘lecture' seminars to complete the training of his ‘puppy‘. A dog is not a puppy at two. They are comparable to a twenty-four-year-old person, not a ten-year-old. He walked around with the stupid Wonder Lead around his neck, because it wouldn't fit in his vest, and a shock collar around his dog's belly. He told me the dog was not ready to have the collar placed around her neck yet. I have been training for thirty years, have trained thousands of dogs and have only twice had to put an e-collar around a dog's stomach. This is a particularly sensitive area and is used when a dog is tough enough to not be deterred by the e-collar. All of the others who needed e-collar work, not all dogs do, wore the collar around the neck with no negative results. Needless to say, the fellow failed terribly, mainly because his head was full of this marketing B.S., and dropped out of the class at the halfway point. Once again, the dog was trainable but the owner was not. The other dogs in the seminar did well and went on to enjoy the hunting season.
My advice to you is to find a competent professional and work closely with him either one-on-one or in a small group setting. My seminars are limited to four dogs and their owners because when someone comes to me for training, they get me, not an assistant or helper. We meet one day a week for six weeks with assignments given to the owners to work on before the next class. Over the course of this six week class, we will be exposing the dogs to over a hundred birds. We will be shooting birds, teaching the dogs to honor point, find dead, retrieve, handle in the field with other dogs and coaching you on how to handle and communicate with your dog. Dogs are not all the same and need to be handled and trained according to their needs and personalities. That is why reading books, watching videos, or being lectured to can only cover generalities and not specific needs of individual dogs. The lecture-giver does not get to know the personality of the twenty dogs, or the twenty owners' short-comings. I will help you week-to-week with problems that come up during the course of training. I also put dogs of similar age and ability in the same class. No combining flushers, retrievers and pointers. If you do your homework, you will have a trained dog at the end of the class. All this for $450.
I have a problem with the three-month-formula for training a boarded dog. It does not take three months to train a companion hunting dog. Usually the trainer who requires three months has more dogs in his kennel then he can handle. You cannot train twenty to thirty dogs per day, as many of them take on. The dogs end up being trained every other day or even every third day. Of course the prices seem good, $300 a month, but even at $450 a month, the trainer's costs and time are not covered. Not if you teach field handling, not if you have licensed and insured grounds, and not if you are shooting plenty of birds over the dog. At $450 per month, you are paying $15 per day. How many hours and how many birds can a trainer put into a dog for less then $15 per day? Quail cost $3-$4 a piece, chuckar costs $4.50 to $5.50 a piece, pheasant costs $6 to $8 a piece. Need shells for the gun? Can't shoot birds and train the dog alone. You will need a helper to do the job right.
Setting three quail at $3.50 each will cost $10.50. That leaves $4.50 for cleaning, feeding and time spent training. This doesn't even take into account care and feed of the birds used for training. Do the math and you will see why so many people get ripped off by so-called trainers. Now think about the $300 per month trainer at $10 per day. You can completely ignore any Michigan trainer who claims to train with only wild birds. Unless you only have two or three dogs in your kennel, you will not be able find enough birds in the wild to train ten or twelve dogs. And the idea that you can run dogs on the same birds day after day and not drive them away is pure B.S.
My training dogs will have fifteen to twenty birds a week released for them. Maybe you can save money by using pigeons. Pigeons do one of two things, sit or fly. Problem is, game birds like to run. If you do not train with game birds, how does the dog learn how to handle running birds? Try going pheasant hunting with a dog trained on pigeons. I don't recall or recapture released birds. Why? Because on our exercise runs, I want the dogs to find birds. Birds, birds and more birds is what most young dogs need. Think your dog will be conditioned for the rigors of hunting at $15 per day? Even with no birds released, what is an hour of running worth after cleaning and later feeding?
I work our training dogs six days a week, with most dogs completed in four weeks. Training a dog properly is not an inexpensive venture and will take weeks to accomplish, not months. I work with the owner for two hours every two weeks to show the dog's progress and to help the owner learn how to handle and communicate with his dog. If you, the handler, is no also trained properly, you will not be able to maintain your dog at this level for the years to come. And this is all included in my weekly fees. I also do private sessions for people with special problems or needs. If you would like more information on our training programs at Wing Shooter, call us at (734)665-7489, or email me at charlielinblade@msn.com.
Charlie Linblade
Mighigan Wing Shooters Hunt Club
Michigan Pheasant Hunting
Michigan Bird Dog Training
