Here is a rare chance to get some one-on-one training from hall of fame bird dog trainer Dave Walker. GunDogBreeders.com is hosting it’s first annual fall dog training camp in Richfield, UT on September 18th and 19th at the Rooster Valley Pheasant Farm. Learn more about the training seminar here. I attended one of his training seminars last year and had a great time as well as learning a lot from this master of pointing dogs. Nobody I have seen can read a dog better than Dave Walker which just seems to accelerate the training process. His book is one of the best training aids as well. Email me if you are interested in attending this dog training seminar.

Ace is coming along a little better with his bird work this week. I work him for 5-10 minutes alone or until he points a bird and then I let Annie out and run them together on a couple more birds. Each point is getting better and better. He is backing well and with our quail recall pen up and running smooth I am able to get 3-4 points and flushes before the birds scatter. Annie is so soft-mouthed that if she catches one of the quail there is no damage besides dog slobber. I just put the wet quail right back in the recall pen and they are ready to go again the next day.

Planted a few quail today and ran both Annie and Ace. Annie set up on point a few minutes into the field and Ace was right there with her. Not sure if we was backing or pointing but I was excited to see him point his first bird anyway. I tried to get my camera out for a shot but my hands were full carrying a shotgun, ecollar transmitter and gloves. He held the point for about 4-5 seconds and jumped in on the bird when Annie flinched. The quail didn’t fly so good and he ended up chasing it and then catching it. While he was chasing I fired my shotgun into the air to get him more used to the gunfire. After he did catch the quail he brought it right to me.

The dogs ended up pointing a rooster pheasant as we pushed down to the river but I couldn’t get a shot off. Then we found this hen and Annie pinned it against the canal. The pheasant start to run a bit more as we move towards warmer weather and spring so it was nice to start out with the quail that hold a little better. Ace has been doing good with his ecollar conditioning and is learning to check back with the command “back”. I try to pet him down real good when I call him all the way back to me periodically while we are training. It would have been nice to have an extra pair of hands to help out, but my training buddy went south to chase chukars for the day. I didn’t dare take an all day hunting excursion on the weekend of Valentines Day. Gotta keep momma happy!

Ace has been chasing clipped wing pigeons for a few days now and is bringing the birds back to me. He enjoys the chase and loves to carry the birds in his mouth. Today I tried a clipped wing hen pheasant with just a bit removed from her flight feathers. She was quite big and could fly about fifty yards only a foot or two off the ground. Ace had no problems with her size or strength and ran the bird down quickly. One more day of builiding prey drive and we will start flushing birds in front of him and begin learning about scent.

Maddy is a 12 week old shorthair that we are working with. I let her chase the hen pheasant when Ace was finished and she did great with it.

We went to visit our little brittany puppy Annie yesterday at the dog trainers place. Alyssa wanted to go with me because she likes Annie and thinks she’s the cutest puppy ever. It is nice to have Annie so close that we can stop by anytime for a visit. Annie seems to recognize me and comes right to me when I call her. She is still retrieving pretty well although she is developing a bit of an independent streak. Sometimes she’ll take the dummy and run away with it.

While we were there we got to help Chris add 3 more priefert dog kennel panels to bring his capacity up to four. He picked up another client locally this week. He will be force-fetch training a german shorthair named “Rat”. It is fun to see Chris work with the dogs. He is really fixing up his place nicely for the dog training and his future dog boarding business. Annie seems to respond well to Chris and his training methods. We hope to visit Annie again in a few days.