Book Review

Seems like dog books run in packs. A bunch of them have arrived panting on my doorstep: works aimed at training various breeds, helping us appreciate our canine partners and providing insight-and laughs-regarding the ancient, complex relationship between Homo sapiens and Canis familiaris.

The Orvis Book of Dogs
Photographs by Denver Bryan and text by Tom Davis (Lyons Press, 800-243-0495, www.lyonspress.com; 2007) 154 pp. $34.95.

Most of us enjoy good color photos of real hunting dogs at work and at play. In this large-format volume you'll find canines as various as golden and Labrador retrievers, Weimaraners, red setters and English setters, Drahthaars, Brittanys, pointers, and springer and Boykin spaniels. There are scads of... Read More »



action shots plus "atmospherics": dogs and hunters resting after a hard day afield, working dogs in game-rich landscapes, dogs and handlers during times of training and recreation.
Denver Bryan is a top-flight professional photographer whose work has appeared on the covers of more than 200 magazines, including Shooting Sportsman. Two of his recent books are The Life of a Lab and Labs Afield, both published by Ducks Unlimited. (Included in The Orvis Book of Dogs is a great action shot of a springer bounding through shallow water, with which Lyons Press decorated the cover of my own book, A Rough-Shooting Dog. Thanks, Denver!) Tom Davis contributes an extended essay that weaves through the photos; he's an editor-at-large for Pointing Dog Journal and writes for many other outdoor magazines. A recent Davis wingshooting book, reviewed here in March/April 2005, is The Tattered Autumn Sky (Lyons Press).
Davis starts us off with a story of how a Wis-consin Lab saved her master's life after their duck boat swamped in icy water. He continues with observations on the joys and travails of living with dogs and hunting a range of gamebirds, rightly noting that "A single sterling piece of dog work can make an otherwise uneventful hunt burn brightly in memory." There are passages on picking a puppy and deciding on a dog trainer plus suggestions on how to keep an old dog hunting happily and effectively. The text melds nicely with Bryan's photos, which are full of drama, humor and unfeigned love.

Training Your Pointing Dog for Hunting & Home
By Richard Weaver (Stackpole Books, 800-732-3669, www.stackpolebooks.com; 2007) 116 pp. $19.95.

Dick Weaver is a professional trainer and the author of Grouse Dogs (Countrysport Press; reviewed here in Sept/Oct '06), a memoir about hunting ruffs in the Appalachians of south-central Pennsylvania with his Ryman-type English setters. Now Weaver has written a training manual-the product, he notes, of "thirty-five years of experience and a thousand-plus dogs." Weaver outlines a simplified, commonsense approach that will yield a "companion pointing dog," a method that differs somewhat from procedures used for training canines for field trials. He offers advice on how to lay out a reasonable schedule and plan specific training sessions, and he advocates a "reassuring firmness" in which you, as trainer, stay "emotionally even so that your pup will trust you, know what to expect from you, and respond to your handling."
Weaver leads us through the pup's first seven weeks (with suggestions on how a breeder can up the chances for a stable, well-adjusted prospect), early obedience work and field training, the first season (keep those hunts short so you don't run your youngster into the ground), how to teach positive lessons on a shooting preserve, and problems that may arise (chasing deer, bird and gun shyness, retrieving glitches). Overall, I was impressed by the straightforward nuts-and-bolts approach of Weaver's book. Training Your Pointing Dog is simply and clearly written, not overly long and shouldn't intimidate the first-time trainer.

Professional Gundog Training: The Trade Secrets
By Joe Irving (Stackpole Books, 800-732-3669, www.stackpolebooks.com; 2006) 172 pp. $36.95.

A British guide to training spaniels, this book is also useful for working up retrievers as flushing dogs. More deeply detailed than the Weaver work, it has an unusual alphabetical organization, starting with "Absconding" (when the dog runs off and won't come back when called) and proceeding through dummy launchers, hand signals, jumping (how to train a dog to clear a fence in stride), predators (not coyotes, but the two-legged variety who will take your money while masquerading as dog trainers), quartering, training collars (Irving prefers not to use them; he advises "be fleet of foot" when you need to make a correction), through "Yapping-Yipping-Giving Tongue," which Irving considers "a most undesirable trait and one to be discouraged." (I doubt I'll try to curb this behavior in my young cocker; he does it on grouse, and I don't really mind, because a shrill, enthusiastic yip alerts me that a bird has just flushed.)
Since this is a British book, not all of the situations and methods transfer directly to North American hunting and trial situations. Still, you can pick up some good ideas from Irving, particularly ones dealing with the psychology of dogs. The author is a retired child psychiatrist, and this has given him a special insight into the canine thought process. The text is sprinkled with lively anecdotes from Irving's own experiences while training, shooting, trialing and dealing with quirky dog owners and fellow trainers. I also have on my shelf Irving's Training Spaniels, published in 1993, which is an excellent guide to producing a solid gundog.

Positive Gun Dogs: Clicker Training for Sporting Breeds
By Jim Barry, Mary Emmen & Susan Smith (Sunshine Books, 800-472-5425, www.clickertraining.com; 2007) 111 pp. $24.95.

Clicker training is all the rage in dog activities and sports such as agility and competitive obedience trials. This relatively new technique is based on using a handheld plastic-and-metal clicker plus a reward (usually food but sometimes a "happy bumper," a dummy tossed for a fun retrieve) to reinforce positive behavior in a dog. The authors believe it can be applied to the schooling of hunting and field-trial dogs, including pointers, flushers and retrievers. Mary Emmen and Susan Smith founded the PositiveGunDogs Yahoo group discussion list and met Jim Barry through discussions online. The three, who are professional trainers and consultants, wrote Positive Gun Dogs in response to list members' pleas for a manual that would not promote coercion, fear and pain as training tools.
The authors begin by advancing a theory of how animals learn. They point out that much of what humans interpret as misbehavior or defiance is simply the dog not understanding what the handler wants it to do. They then outline general techniques for training using positive methods. "Because it is so important to proceed systematically," they write, "we include a chapter on criteria setting and record keeping." They identify heeling, coming in on command, sitting, stopping, and staying in one spot as foundation blocks for more advanced training. They also discuss equipment, how to choose training areas and how to condition a dog to the gun and to birds. They make suggestions on the best ways of eliciting and embedding the key skills of hunting thoroughly, pointing and flushing, and retrieving.
The authors write, "While the training of pet dogs and dogs that compete in obedience, agility, and other sports has relied increasingly on learning theory, the training of gun dogs has remained largely the domain of professional trainers who rely on tradition and electronic collars." They believe "the success achieved by most gun dog trainers has come not because they understand how dogs learn, but in spite of their lack of systematic understanding." I'd contest that statement, as I know a number of professionals who use methods not too different from what Barry, Emmen and Smith espouse. The authors point out that trainers often push dogs too fast and set unattainable goals. "Aim for at least an 80:20 ratio of success to failure. Your dog should succeed 80 percent of the time." They identify four stages of learning: acquisition, fluency, generalization (learning to perform a behavior under different conditions or in different environments) and maintenance.
This is not a book you'll breeze through in an evening. The theory about how a dog learns is complex, and the text contains many technical terms, such as "operant conditioning," "external inhibition and disinhibition" and the "Premack Principle" (using something the dog wants to do to get it to do something it would rather not do). I've never trained a dog using the clicker method, and I'm not sure how well it would work for a hard-charging, hard-headed field performer, but I definitely will take the time to study this logic-based system as I continue the training of my young English cocker.

Training People
By Tess of Helena (Chronicle Books, 800-759-0190, www.chroniclebooks.com; 2007) 151 pp. $14.95.

Just when you thought Barbara Bush's springer, Millie, was the only canine with literary ambitions, along comes a book written by a Labrador named Tess. (In real life, the creator of this offbeat manual happens to be Montana resident Brian Kahn.) Although this entertainment has little to do with hunting, it's a fun read illustrated with humorous color photos.
The first chapter is titled "How to Choose a Human." ("As your potential people approach, watch carefully. Are they alert? Do they appear intelligent, interested? Do they seem lazy? Humans who demonstrate sloth tend to resist vigorous physical activity, and thus are harder to train to assist you in your daily exercise"). Tess advises on whether to choose a male or female human, how to discipline them ("yipping offers encouragement while barking is used to give commands"), "Getting the Food You Want" and "Advanced Training." In discussing the latter, hunting is mentioned: "Present a male human with one dead duck, and you have a devoted servant for life!"