"It was a dark and stormy night.
Really," according to Jim Rieser. "One of those mid-winter
nights in east central Wisconsin when the temperature was 30
below zero, the wind blew snow in gusts up to 40 miles per hour,
and the wind-chill dropped to the minus 50º range,"
Reiser recollects.
"Sonny, my new German shorthair pointer puppy wasn't enjoying
any of this. Only 12 weeks old, he had never seen bare ground
because of constant snow cover and he had never spent much time
outside because of the deadly cold. His brief exposure to the
outdoors was quick and painful as the winter wind and the numbing
temperatures made house-breaking a heart breaking experience
with the shivering pup searching for in the spot in the snow
to pee and poop in a hurry," Rieser vividly remembers.
"As a result of these weather conditions, I ended up spending
a lot of time indoors with the pup, |
Jim Rieser, a doctor of veterinary medicine, one of this
country's top breeders of German Shorthair Pointers, starts training
all his pups in his lap often times while watching television.
He establish es his "dominance" and begins to teach
a seven week old pup "sit," "whoa," "no,"
"down," "hold," and the other preliminary
steps of basic obedience. He also begins a life-long "bond"
with the pup.
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playing with him in the kitchen, letting
him chase a tennis ball in the hallway and sitting with
him in my lap in front of the television set with the sound turned
up to drown out the moan and whistle of the winter wind. 'Poor
little guy,' I at first thought. 'He's missing so much by not
being able to be outdoors romping in the yard, running through
the fields, chasing flying leaves and butterflies, and enjoying
the summer sunshine.'"
"Because of this brutal winter weather, however, I spent
much more time with this pup in an 'up-close and personal' way
than I had ever before experienced with any of my other gun dogs.
And as a result of these weather induced conditions, I developed
a sort of 'early training' procedure for this pup. Since then,
I've used this early beginning approach for starting all my young
dogs on an in-the-house, in-my-lap 'basic training' program.
This system has worked pretty well to create a bond between
the pups and me while also beginning basic obedience, establishing
my dominance in our relationship, and developing cooperation,"
Rieser has discovered.
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