Pointing Dogs Made Easy - Hardcover

Mulak, Steven

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0924357541 ISBN 13: 9780924357541

Publisher: Down East Books,U.S., 1995

Synopsis

This is no ordinary dog-training book, but rather a dog-training book for ordinary people. This is the book for people who want good companions and pets, as well as excellent bird dogs.

About this title

From the Author

The emphasis is on the trainer, not the dog.
Although we all may wish it otherwise, there is no set formula for turning out a good bird dog. Uninitiated people think there's a trick to it, and if only they could find the one magic recipe they'd have a good dog. There is no shortage of how-to-do-it books on the subject, but none of them contain that elusive magic recipe so many of us search for, and too many of us own dogs that represent our failings as trainers. Bird dogs have been trying to teach me lessons all my life. Admittedly, I've been a slow learner, but chief among the things I've learned is that no two dogs are alike, and no two take to any training method or formula in the same way: The training guide book says that such-and-such will cure the problem, but when you try it on your Sparkey he just runs faster, or worse, he rolls over on his back and cries. What to do? In answer to just about every dog training problem, I've become an evangelist for judgement rather than hard and fast rules. If that sounds like the emphasis is on the trainer rather than the dog, than you've got the gist of my book. Good dogs are dogs lucky enough to have had a persistent trainer, and bad dogs are just dogs that were not as lucky. I don't want, ever, to insinuate that my own bird dogs never break point or run too wide or disobey a command. Of course they do. They're only trained, not beatified. The point is that when they misbehave, the onus shifts back to the handler/trainer to do something about it. I set out to write an informative book that would be an interesting read the first time around, yet would contain enough hard information that an amateur dog trainer might want to refer to it on specific problems. Pointing Dogs Made Easy aspires to recount the things bird dogs have taught me over the past 30 years. Paramount among those things are that dog training is not something that requires anything special. You don't have to be an expert or have experience to do a good job. But it is work in the dictionary definition of the word - it's not difficult, but it has to be done, and it takes time and judgement. Bird dogs have shown me the wonderful things that are possible when it's done right. They've also taught me what happens when it's not.

Edition details

• Publisher: Down East Books,U.S.
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0924357541
• ISBN 13: 9780924357541
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 167