Jack Byrnes or Bernie Focker: Which Dog Trainer Are You?

If you're not familiar, the two character names in the title come from the movie "Meet the Fockers," where a soon-to-be newlywed couple must endure the first meeting of their parents. Jack Byners, the bride's father, is and ex-CIA operative played by the great Bobby De Niro. Jack clearly subscribes to the authoritarian style of parenting, obviously a derivative of his career and training--strict, rigid, and often unforgiving and unapologetic.

In the movie Jack is balanced by the groom's father, Bernie Focker, who is played by another Hollywood great, Dustin Hoffman. Bernie is a lawyer turned Mr. Mom and is way more sensitive and nurturing than Jack. Always proud, encouraging, and in defense of his son. The conflict in parenting styles comes to a head during a scene where Bernie is showing Jack and the others a room he's created in dedication and in memoriam of his son's childhood and early achievements. Ribbons and trophies everywhere. There is a disagreement over "celebrating mediocrity" which kicks off the conflict throughout the rest of the movie. I think there is an interesting parallel in the dog training world.

I can see where snippets of both philosophies can be beneficial in training our hunting and housepet companions, but I find myself standing fervently with Bernie. More on this later...

The New Garmin DC30

I've been running one of the new DC30's for a couple weeks now, and this past weekend ran two in "hunting situations." In short, the system works pretty well. There are, however, a couple things that you, the pointing dog enthusiast, can do to make the system work better for you.

1. Change the alert setting to tone 6 (EDIT: TONE 8). I think this particular tone is the easiest to hear, as it's a longer chirping sound.

2. Keep the Astro 220 handy. That does not mean in a backpack, hunting vest, etc. I keep mine on my chest, mounted to the strap on my vest. This gives you quick access to the screen, and allows you to hear the alert of a pointing dog more easily.

3. Change the dog type on each DC20 or DC30 to "pointing dog." I've noticed that in the Auto mode it can sometimes tell me a pointing dog is sitting. In "pointing dog" mode, it could report a defacating or resting dog as pointing, but at least then you get an alert. In the Auto mode, if it reported a pointing dog as sitting, the alert would not be sounded.

4. Be sure to pay close attention to the compass in the "dog" screen. If the arrows seem to be indicating any sort of inacurracy, then be sure to calibrate the compass. It only takes 30 seconds, and can be done quickly in the field while your worm burner is making a long cast down a treeline. Properly calibrated, the unit is very accurate, scary accurate, and has walked me right up the nose of pointing setters in thick cover. I have a few more pheasant tails in my fly tying bin to show for it.

The above being said, I expect pracitcal range for an eastern type bird hunter to be around 500 yards, depending on the countour of the land. I haven't found that heavily wooded areas decrease the range, but hills do. I put the DC30 on a dog while bikejoring, and even with a clear line of site (no trees), the Astro lost contact after we crested a hill 700 yards away. On the prairies, I have tracked dogs beyond 900 yards with the DC20 before I got them turned, and the DC30 should be better.

I think the newer unit should probably be more durable, the only possible weak spot being the antenna. However, it is long and thin, and I think will stand up to any wear and tear my dogs could ever expose them to, and Ike consistently hunts the early season with blood all over his face and chest--that's just the nature of the beast when you put together a hard-running dog with thick cover.

Kudos to Garmin for making the end of the nylon collar pointed. It makes working with that thick nylon much easier.

Some Bikejoring Tips

It's been more than a month, and I've bikejored with the dogs a dozen times now. I've only changed my rig a couple times and have come to something I'm happy with--at least enough that I'm not going to waste time monkey'ing with it. I try to road them every other, or every third day. It's not always possible, and I haven't been strict about the schedule, but they're getting worked enough. Here are a few things I've learned:

1. We always park and start in the same spot, go east some distance, and turn around and come back. With country roads in the 1-mile grid pattern, no need to get complicated. It makes planning a routine easier.

2. Water the dogs down head to toe before you start, they'll pull harder for longer.

3. If you can plan to go over a creek or by accessible pond, it's nice to be able to get the dogs wet again halfway through the exercise.

5. Wear a Camel-bak or something to water the dogs. Seeing a trend here? Also, it's best not to let them gorge themselves on water. It is better to give them small amounts every mile to wet their mouths, which helps them cool themselves.

4. I'm happy with a 10-minute mile pace, including breaks. That typically means 6-minute mile pace while running, or about 10mph. Any slower and the dogs kick into a trot instead of the gallop, and I'm sure the "power curve" ramps once they're into the gallop, as they are kicking off with both rear feet almost simotaneously.

5. Look into disc brakes before you buy a bike with traditional pads. I've nearly worn through the pads on my rear tire already. I'm not advocating discs, just check them out; they may be better from a functional and longevity standpoint.

6. Pull over and stop when a vehicle is about to pass you, no matter the direction. It'll make you, and them, feel better about it.

7. Don't overdo it. The dogs need their rest.

More Bikejor and Other Training

I've been trying to bikejor with the dogs every other day or day and a half, with free runs on the off days. We've had some serious heat the past few days, so I've only been free-running them at a local dog park, nearly every day. Sage gets in a good bit of swimming there, as well. I think they were in pretty good shape to begin with, but I can certainly see an improvement in toughness of their pads.

The dog park also offers me an opportunity for some reminders on the virtues of "whoa." I like my dogs to think that "whoa" means "birds." So, as they're careening off the terraces hunting the thicker grass, if I see a robin or meadowlark in the grass ahead I'll whoa one or both. He or they will stop with their noses in the air trying to pick up the bird. Usually after a moment they'll catch the bird moving in the grass. I'll walk in and flush the bird. I let them find plenty on their own, as well, but they don't let them get too close, so the way it usually works is they'll wind them from a ways off, stop, and scan ahead for the bird. I like that it's making my older dog more cautious, because he's been kind of a all-or-nothing hard charging kind of bird dog.

Wild Birds in Motion

I've only been hunting for seven years, over dogs for six, and only over my own for three now--a relatively short span. So, I've taken heavy preference to using wild birds to train my dogs, as opposed to more formal training with liberated or planted birds. The latter carries with it the much higher probability that the inexperienced trainer could make a mistake that creates a significant setback in a young dog's training.

Also, after hunting with someone new, I get to puff out my chest and answer "yes" when asked if I've trained my dogs myself. Little do they know, as this really proves is that I'm capable of driving my dogs to the birds, and keeping my mouth shut as we look for them. The birds do the rest.

Here, Sage points a hen pheasant during a spring run in central KS:



Taken on the same day, Ike also finds a hen, and Sage is honoring.



You can clearly see the difference in style between Sage and Ike, and I think their respective breedings play the biggest part in this. Sage came from a breeder in the northeastern US, and is likely intended to be a "grouse dog," whatever that is. His lines also have much closer ties to European dogs, which explains his tendency to crouch low, or "set" when on point. On the other hand, Ike was intended to be a field trial dog, and it's no secret the trialers like a high and straight tail.

Sometimes it's fun to have someone else flush the birds for you...



Anyway, I hope to get many more clips like this later this fall.

Bikejoring - A Work in Progress

I've decided that in my inaugural post I'll just jump right in. Hopefully things will move quickly enough at first that this entrance will be easily overlooked.

So, I have two young English setters, Sage and Ike, 3 years and 2 years old, respectively. Still puppies for most purposes. This fall we're going on an extended bird hunting trip to Montana. Typically our season starts fairly lightly, hunting prairie chickens for a weekend in Kansas around the 15th of September. But this season we'll be starting a bit earlier, and will be hunting for almost two weeks straight. In order to have dogs that will not only last the long trip, but be productive as bird dogs (finding plentiful amounts of birds), it's important that we undertake an active physical training regimen to prepare not only the cardiovascular system, but the muscles, and pads of the feet.

To that end, the Kansas summer weather can be downright oppressive. The temperatures, even nighttime lows, don't allow for extended off-leash runs of an hour or more. Anything less isn't terribly beneficial. So, in the interest of time savings and applicable benefit, I decided to purchase some roading harnesses and use resitance training (roading) to whip the pups into shape. Basically, the dogs pull against a resistance, which effectivly compresses a longer free-run into a shorter period of time. Being a single guy and having no access to an ATV, I ruled out using my pick-up and opted to explore "bikejoring."

For the uninitiated, bikejoring is a little known sport in which dogs are used to pull a rider on a bicycle. A modification on the more popular skijoring, I can't find much written on the subject. Really, only two sites and a blog I found have useful information. Here are the links:

http://www.sos.net/~brucec/bkjr.htm

http://home.earthlink.net/~abakansams/bikejor.html

http://bikejor.blogspot.com/

In the past week I've dived head first into this endeavor, purchasing an expensive mountain bike, the harnesses, and associated tack. So far I've worked each dog four times and have learned through trial and error (my favorite method) some of the finer points, which I plan to expand upon later.