How to Help Gun Dogs Train Themselves

by Joan Bailey

Save time by training your gun dog the easy, painless and fun way. The most critical developmental time for dogs is the first 16 weeks of life. Since puppies usually go to their new owners between 8 and 12 weeks of age, only a few short weeks remain for the dog's potential to be tapped. Proper socialization, exposure and conditioning must take place within this time frame if behavioral problems such as not coming when called, not retrieving, or failure to point are to be avoided. In the United States each year, over 8 million gun dogs work in unison with the 16 million people who have come to enjoy the thrill of hunting upland birds and waterfowl. Of that number, thousands will spend approximately $600 to purchase a new pup within the next year only to find that unnecessary mistakes have ruined an otherwise fine gun dog's potential. It doesn't have to be that way. One of America's great dog people, and veteran editor of The Gun Dog Supreme, Joan Bailey, guides both new and experienced dog owners through that all important first year of their new puppy's life with her book--"How To Help Gun Dogs Train Themselves." Designed in an easy to read, step-by-step format. "How To Help Gun Dogs Train Themselves" assists gun dog owners by providing proven methods emphasizing socialization, exposure and conditioning during the critical first 12 months of a dogs life. Under the skillful direction of Joan Bailey, gun dog enthusiasts will learn what thousands of successful bird hunters have known for years--with a little help gun dogs really train themselves. Now in it's 3rd edition, updated with new material, over 206 information packed pages, more than 130 photographs.

Genres: Dogs

206 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1992

Reviews

[Nicholas Charriere · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book full of good advice for the early on (less than a year) conditioning that can then lead to training a great gun dog. This book could also be read by any future dog owners, although they might want to skip certain sections.

Full of great insights, Joan gives advice on many different aspects, from the tactical plan for the first few days, to the introduction to water, gun shots, WOAH training, retrieving, etc...

She places extra emphasis on patience and positive, reinforcing techniques, while still defending that some correctional methods can work well (I'm not saying they don't, but this is proof of the age of the book, since clever positive methods have shown to be more reliable to bring out the dogs instincts without ever taking the risk of breaking it's spirit).

I personally prefer Ben O. Williams focus on finding and pointing only, without caring so much about the retrieving, but Joan's book is a better all rounder.

[Alice Harbin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well written book that was informative. She emphasized the importance of working with your dog as soon as you got it. This early training she termed "conditioning" as contrasted to "training" which is specific for gun dogs.
She believes that playing tug with your gun dog will make him "hard mouthed" and will damage the downed bird. Also, playing "fetch" too much will result in a dog that doesn't want to retrieve. This advise comes a bit late for our dog.
Encouraging for our dog was the discussion of slowly getting your dog accustomed to being in the water.

[Bre · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book talks you through getting and training a puppy, specifically to train a hunting dog, but the first several chapters are a good foundation to any puppy training. I'll be delaying gun dog ownership and training for several years due to circumstance, but I plan to implement the principles this book advocates with any and every pup I own in the coming years.