Profiling 

(5th & last Concluding Thoughts)

 We have to remember that the level of awareness that a hunter has to the type of sport and its complexities surmounts a sheer trainer. I have already asserted that all types of sporting dog competitions or activities have their origin in featuring a special interest in hunting, and the reason why most working dogs are bred to suit it appropriately. In addition, the reason why there are also a variety of working breeds only shows us that there is an array of hunting pursuits that even the ability of let’s say, a Collie to herd are contrasted with livestock guardian dogs who would stand simply as its keeper, this demonstrates a coordinated quest of a pack of dogs while hunting. There are other types of breeds like Beagles, Jack Russells, and Terriers who are originally bred to dig the ground to hunt their prey. Then, bird dogs is another; where pointing, flushing and retrieving are their specialized skills. Dogs like English Setters or German Shorthaired Pointers in contrast to a flusher like Spaniels and even Poodles; who are typically considered as lap dogs, originated as water dogs and are fully capable of flushing birds, this breed has many qualities that are attractive to hunters for they are active and intelligent, Poodles are rather easy to train and can make excellent hunting companions. Then retrievers, where most of them are flushers but have a natural ability to retrieve like Labradors and Goldens. Again, even at this, there is a big contrast between these two flusher/retriever bird dog hunters since Pointers usually cover a vast open fields with birds that are being few and scattered, they are designed to locate birds far and wide, then hold point while the gunner following the dog gains position to flush and shoot. The opposite type of hunting pursuit is for flusher/retriever upland bird hunting, where a dog stays closer to the hunter or within shotgun range with pretty much profuse covers. In addition to flusher/retriever, there are also many forms of bird hunting tasks for retrievers allied to waterfowl (duck hunt) and an upland hunting that are utterly diverse. A good upland flusher/retriever bird dog is up to locate the bird within your range and put them in the air quickly, so you move with the dog as it searches the cover immediately surrounding you, a good duck hunting retriever dog is inversely the opposite, this is where the dog is tasked to stay on a platform and wait for the gunner to shoot then retrieve, and then to return quickly to the spot to wait for another duck diver.     

The other measure I want to share is the difference between a Hunter Dog Trainer in contrast to a pure Hunter whose main interest is after sheer number of birds taken, this in contrast to a Hunter Dog Trainer who is always on the lookout for something their dog needs. Hunter Dog Trainers always try to find a way to challenge their dog to learn and improve while a Hunter will not pass a shot at the expense of allowing their dog to position and increase their dog’s confidence and experience. Unlike pure Hunters, a Hunter Dog Trainer tends to enjoy more the moment with their dog than the number of downed birds.    

Now all these in contrast to a newbie who would recklessly pick a training material on the internet, which on the outset would seem to further develop one’s interest, until an untold direction pops up, which essentially is inconsistent in outfitting oneself and a dog because one only has a general fascination of that sporting event that he/she is in. Meaning, a newbie who is out of the loop when it comes to a range of selective training choices and requirements that is compulsory to the demand of a particular sporting intent, which needs to be associated to a hunting pursuit to make your dog more versatile concurrent to the sporting activity that it is in.   

 

Agenda

(4th Concluding Thought)

 After a swipe on ‘Closer to Home’ to deal with some sensitive encounters that my reader may possibly meet while deliberating either to train their dog or not, and much more the idea to hunt. It is only practical to open up this valuable lesson that I have learned when someone is already engaged in the task of training their dog or a newbie. You see, more than often, after seeing the point taught by someone who is in authority or a specialist, be it through reading or a video watch, our usual tendency is then to mimic the exact instruction to meet the targeted task as though the plight that an instructor is trying to actuate is in exact union with the condition of the dog that we are training, plus the fact that both dogs occupies a very different environment. If you fail to acknowledge this gap, you end up following the agenda of the trainer at the expense of your transitioning skill on how to teach your dog that is not in conflict to your dog’s learning curve. Or better yet, you wind up utilizing a well-established method that a trainer is utilizing without thoroughly considering the temperament of your peculiar dog. We need to bear in mind that a person who has developed this type of consciousness is able to steer a straight course toward their objective purpose without being veered towards how it is typically practiced. In other words, we need to focus on the possibilities of success, not on the potentials for failures. So here is the lesson: rather than evaluating the dog’s ‘response’ to the simple commands, you as a newbie should pay more attention to the dog’s overall well-being and how it affects their behavior, for after the training session, it will provide you a lot of information which you can use in maintaining their good behavior and improving your relationship with your dog.

This also is to ward off some catchy training practices customarily applied these days, which after all, an inept trainer holds a lesser significant value to an already trained dog, though continues to promote it because it is now part of the prospectus highly commended and promoted in modern dog training that is aligned to a culture that wants to see swift results. One of them is the use of an electric collar. This came out as a brilliant substitute of a cruel way of pinching a dog’s ear to hasten a dog’s learning curve to hold an object in its mouth while on leash. A brilliant substitute because, you can now remotely inflict a dog and have a similar control as soon as the dog is off leash. Then came the popularity of ‘positive training’ where discerning trainers would still utilize the same expensive gadget but using them with a very low vibration, and for what? Simply to enforce a command that the dog already knows, as if that is the only way to do it. My point is, if one knows the fundamental purpose of inflicting a dog similar to what the mother dog does, who knows every individual puppy she has, the whole issue of ‘punitive’ and ‘positive training’ will start to make sense. You see, dogs have different temperaments; some are just simply stubborn while others are not, some hardly need to be chastened while others do. The only cordial benefit that this newer discovery on ‘positive training’ is the reality that though you need to inflict a dog to correct its behavior (not viciously though) you must always end up with a positive note to assure your dog that censuring them is over for now.