Back in the 1940's, my hunting Cocker Spaniel,
Tar, was naturally a "soft-mouth" retriever.... not
unusual and more or less expected then. Duck hunters and upland
bird hunters mostly "lucked out" when they acquired
"natural hunters". There weren't many "trainers"
who knew how to cope with dog problems. Gun dogs in those days
weren't trained or de-trained as they are today. For the most
part dogs that didn't learn on the job went by the wayside. Dogs
that tenderize table fare were summarily eliminated and dead
dogs don't pass on undesirable genes.
Learning about dogs is a continuous and on-going project and
today I don't know all there is to know of gun dogs and their
training. But I knew a great deal less back then and was naive
enough to believe that anything that got published must be gospel.
Unfortunately, then as now, there's no shortage of charlatans
offering written advise on how to train dogs.
So, when attending college under the G.I. Bill after World War
II, I acquired for $12 at a farmer's market my first but a Labrador
Retriever (out of sound hunting/field trial breeding, which was
one and the same then.) When she started destroying barn pigeons
I was utilizing for training I turned to published experts for
advice.
Two suggestions were offered, a nail spiked board as a retrieving
dummy and lacing dead birds with large darning needles. So I
rigged up a dead pigeon.... in fact, several because I thought
I was benefiting from expert advice.
I can't speak of others. Maybe it works for some dogs. But for
me and my lab pup it was a disaster. So I never did it again.
Clinker was |
bold and aggressive as they come. The first
time she clamped down on a darning needle bird, she yelped and
spit it out. Probably a "soft" dog would have avoided
pigeons thereafter, but Clinker was a tough one. She went back
for more, much in the manner a badly-quilled terrier will continue
to attack a porcupine, grabbing, yelping and tossing the bird
into the air. True, damage to the bird fell a bit short of the
gut-popping, bone-crunching that had gone on.  |
But blood poured from the roof of Clink's
mouth, her tongue and lips.
It didn't take a Los Alamos alumni to decide to abandon this
particular "training tip". But Clinker was precocious
(doing a decent job of hunting from the age of 5-months) and
seemed well worth working with. Furthermore, by that time I had
been introduced to retriever field trials by Dr. F. J. Pfeifer,
the New London, WI physician and surgeon generally credited with
being "the father" of the American Water Spaniel breed
and Rollin Elwell, Appleton, WI, who's 105-lb black Lab, Jigaboo
was one of the top trial dogs in the state and the grandsire
of Clinker. (Doc's two Golden Retriever trial dogs, Boris and
Marta, reflected in their names the generally accepted belief
back then that Golden Retrievers were descended from some Russian
herd dog, another specious dog-fact).
My first Lab was going to be a dual hunting/field trial dog,
then a not unreasonable expectation. A |
