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The Importance of Mental Stimulation for Sporting Breed Puppies
Training your puppy starts the moment he comes home, and it begins with mental stimulation. Keeping him on task from the beginning will build a better adult sporting dog—but how do you do it? Read on for advice on how to hold a puppy’s attention.
Comparing Performance Metrics of Bird Dogs by Gender
If you ask any bird-dog enthusiast what they look for when choosing a future upland dog and hunting companion, you are bound to get a wide array of advice. Many bird-dog enthusiasts favor specific breeds and bloodlines that align with the species of upland game they pursue or the hunting methods they use (i.e., walk hunting vs. horseback, etc.). When selecting puppies, they may favor certain mannerisms, such as boldness vs. timidness, or with a preferred conformation or coloration. Most enthusiasts also prefer a specific gender—male vs. female.
ALL ABOUT RETRIEVER TRAINING DUMMIES
Training dummies are a staple of a good retriever training program. Whether you call them dummies or bumpers doesn’t matter, but what does matter is picking the right style and color to fit your training situations.
Nutrition to Support Your Sporting Breed Puppy’s Digestive Health
Digestive health is integral to a puppy’s overall health. The digestive system turns food into building blocks (nutrients) used by every other system, such as the muscular, skeletal, respiratory, and nervous systems, for proper growth and development. Feeding a highly digestible, nutrient-dense puppy food can help a highly active puppy’s body put vital nutrients to work with optimal efficiency.
Nutrition’s Role in Supporting Your Sporting Breed Puppy’s Immune System
A sporting breed puppy’s exposure to the natural world can occur early in life, and frequently. Introduction to the woods and waters in which they will eventually work is important for future training. However, these environments often contain pathogens that can challenge a young puppy’s immune system. Selecting a nutrient-dense diet with prebiotics and a fortified antioxidant complex can help support a puppy’s developing immune system and natural defenses. A strong and functional immune system helps a puppy’s body identify and address potential pathogens, including bacteria, viruses, and parasites.
Intro to Gunfire
As bird dog owners, we all anticipate shooting birds and watching our dogs fire off into the water, chasing after the fallen greenhead. But, we need to take our time; when they are young pups, we need to be careful of just how we first expose them to gunfire.
How Much to Feed a Sporting Breed Puppy
Puppies are a lot of things. They’re curious, they take a lot of naps, and when they wake up they’ve got a tremendous amount of energy. They’ve got powerful appetites and are always on the lookout for the next meal. But there’s more to feeding a puppy than filling up a bowl with kibble.
When and How to Socialize a Sporting Breed Puppy
Socializing puppies when they’re young is key to building strong and confident adult sporting dogs. Puppies need to learn about everything, which includes the environments in which they’ll live and work, people, other dogs and animals, and routine care. Read on for some tips on when and how to start socializing your sporting breed puppy.
Catching Their Stride
A quick internet search or a trip to your local bookstore will unearth hundreds, if not thousands, of articles and books that offer step-by-step instructions on what to do when you bring home your puppy. You will find instructions that break down every step of training a gun dog. Sadly, you will also find even more articles that you may want to avoid reading about those final hunts and the last moments hunters have spent with their faithful hunting companions before they cross over to the big hunting land in the sky.
Can Sporting Breed Puppies Eat Adult Dog Food?
Sporting breed puppies are bred and trained to work. As a result, they have very different nutritional needs from those of a future house dog. Puppy formulas are typically more nutrient dense when compared to most adult formulas, to meet the demands of growth. However, it is not uncommon for sporting dog owners to utilize a performance formula or an “all-life-stages” product for their sporting breed puppies. These formulas are usually more nutrient dense and, in theory, sufficient to support the growth period. However, there are other nutritional options available today specifically designed for active puppies that may offer advantages that help promote a solid nutritional foundation for future performance.
A Dog Day Morning
A season opening morning for young or experienced hunters alike can bring nerves of excitement. Add to the mix your dog’s first duck hunt and you aren’t going to get any sleep! Reasonable expectations and setting them up for a successful time afield is the only way to make sure you’ll both sleep soundly at night.
A Lost Dog
It was July 15, 2003 and Billy Culp was fixin’ to turn loose for a workout his first green derby of the season. He was training this year on a new place just east of Lignite and south of Route 5. There were twenty pointing dog trainers working within a forty-mile radius of Billy , two hundred or more in the state, some serious pros, some serious amateurs, some just guys with a dog or two and a pickup truck.
How Nutrition Supports Trainability in Your Sporting Breed Puppy
Sporting breed puppies have a lot to learn. Nutrition that fuels healthy brain function and learning supports a puppy’s ability to master a variety of tasks. Puppy diets that contain clinically proven levels of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) can provide a training edge.
First Season Expectations
You’ve built up to your pup’s first hunting season—but what should you expect from your young dog? The experts weigh in.
War
Wars between son-in-law and mother-in-law are endemic in our culture, perhaps pandemic in wealthy families and especially when son is Dixie-born and bred and mother-in-law a Yankee. So it was between Eloise Crump of Boston and Doug Hall of Thomasville, husband of Eloise’s daughter Charlotte.
