I arrived home from my Christmas holiday in Jamaica to find a FedEx package on the porch - Web Parton's new training book, Bond of Passion - Living with and Training your Hunting Dog. I have read some of it, perused the rest and here offer my first impressions - more detail will follow after I have had a chance to read the book in depth.Of some importance to me is the fact that Web lives and runs his dogs in the desert Southwest - on the roughest ground after the toughest birds for a pointing dog to handle, the desert quail - blue quail and Gambel's quail. In fact, Web worked with the original owner of Wilderness Adventures Press to author The Bird Hunter's Guide to Arizona, and The Bird Hunter's Guide to Kansas. The fact that he worked with a publisher who burnt his bridges with me in short order, tells me that Web has the patience required to train dogs for the public.
At any rate, Web has written more than a training book, it is a testimony to the central place that bird dogs hold in his life. Web writes in detail about subjects like; running dogs in the heat, the dog's feet, the limits of ground time, and bird, gun or man shy treatment. And though he gives lip service to the flushing and retriever breeds, it is clear that he is a bird dog man in the strictest sense, and a lover of setters.
More later...
Mike, does the book cover training a broke dog? I want my next dog to be a class, broke dog, and would like to read more about training techniques beforehand. Any recommendations are appreciated. Thanks, Jon.
ReplyDeleteJon
ReplyDeleteThis is a book about training hunting dogs, and one of the things I would fault it for is not adequately covering the subject of steady to wing and shot. He mentions it in passing, but I don't find any detail on the subject.
I would recommend Paul Long's book. or Earl Crangle's book, which are discussed in previous posts - click on book reviews tto find those posts.
I like my dogs broke as well, trial dog or hunting dog, I like 'em finished.