Fishing Dog
- This topic has 25 replies, 18 voices, and was last updated Oct 21, 2012 at 8:22 pm by
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I generally follow John Geirach’s mantra on this subject:
“People who claim to own “fishing dogs” are all blinded by love. There’s no such thing as a good fishing dog.”
I love dogs, have always owned dogs, but have rarely seen a good fishing dog.
There’s Chester, Gary LaFontaine’s dog, seen in many of his videos and also his running mate in his bid for THE presidency, as written up in one of the national weekly news mags, his qualifications were; he’s loyal, mute and neutered. A virtual bellwether for all would be fishing dogs.
JCI don’t mean this as an insult, but if you have to ask the question, then forget about having a fishing dog. A properly trained retriever or sporting dog will not be a problem. If you think Wolters writes a good training book, forget about it. If you don’t know what that last sentence means, buy a Shitzu or a Yorkie and leave it at home.
Well our dog Sadie has been going with us since she was a pup. A rescue dog. We started her slow, she was pretty high strung but has now settled down nicely. Try to keep her away from other folks because we know not all are dog loving like we are. She likes to go in the boat and kayak but like Adam said his dog is dark so is ours. We shave her thin in the summer and when it is too hot she stays at home or in the shade of the truck and camper.
Here are some of her with us. We also worry about turning her loose on the trail. On our annual trip to Wyoming we pretty much gave her full run. when she got tired of sniffing around she just found a place and kept an eye on us. She is now 7, almost 8 and pretty much settled down.
When she sees us catch it is let me see, let me see. When fish are released she sometimes goes past her eyeballs looking for the fish.Doug – you know I actually closed the page saying to myself it isn’t worth it, but then I went and drew another homebrew off the keg and decided I just couldn’t let your comment go.
In the boat Cruise is fine. Wading she stays about 2 feet from my left leg. This is great unless I get in a bit too deep. But given what age has done to my wading ability/stability, when she starts swimming I know I’m in too deep.
I had a really good fishing dog up in the states – Jenny. When she was a puppy I was in a phase of fishing a lot of small streams, and I taught her to stay behind me, regardless of whether I was moving upstream or down, so as not to spook fish. It was just a matter of verbal correction, and she picked it up pretty fast. I remember years later fishing on a stream up there with Danny Waldrop, on a stream up in the mountains with steep hillsides covered in mountain laurel. Danny kept worrying about Jenny and I told him, “Don’t worry, she’s up there, and she can see us” She would just keep up like that, right in her place, and appear at our sides from the brush the minute we sat down for lunch. Awesome dog. Most of the “fishing dogs” I have known to show up with friends though have been more like Riley- http://www.thisriveriswild.com/2012/10/fishing-with-riley.html.
I generally subscribe to the idea that if a dog is of a decent sort to begin with, and by this I mean as an individual, not as a breed, then it can be taught to act accordingly in whatever situations you plan to put it in.
Thanks for the picture Michael. Great looking dog! Did you use any particular training method?
Justin I agree, it will depend more on the individual dog, not the bread.
I have to agree with Craig. I trained my bird dog with Wolter’s principles before I realized that this was “outdated.” However, I have been most impressed with the results and receive frequent comments about my dog’s obedience.
Brian – I cheat! I adopt field trial Labs that are past prime time and come completely trained for free. All I have to do is train them how to fish! I’ve got that part down, but Cruise refuses to row.
Craig:
1) I did not intend for it to be insulting
2) You don’t have to use force to train a dog (ie, “beating”, “ear pinching {not even the correct term}”). In addition, correct force training does not involve abuse.
3) Please don’t ever use force training yourself as you will be abusing your dog due to your own ignorance.
4) There are many holes in Wolters training. He actually never trained any of his personal dogs. He had to hire trainers to frequently correct his dogs. It isn’t “outdated” as it was never considered effective training. Wolters is sorta like Martha Stewart; her face is crafting, cooking, etc but she doesn’t know the first thing about actually ‘doing’ it. Or like learning fly fishing from Roland Martin.
5) Sure, you can teach basic obedience from the book, but you will not have a master hunter or field trial champion from methods in his book. I guarantee you that your dog is not finished no matter how well behaved you think it is. You may end up with a dog that hunts ok (at best). This is accepted as fact and proven year and after year in countless hunt tests, field trials, and by properly trained dogs used by the best guides.
6) Ignorance is bliss.
7) I don’t talk about dismantling nuclear bombs because I don’t know a thing about it. However, I can make fictional statements about it all day long and may even sound like I know something.My intention was not to insult, but if that insulted you, then you have other issues.
There are many good programs and methods to train a finished dog (on obedience, hunting, or otherwise). Seek out a professional trainer (not at the local pet store either) that can teach you the proper way about training your dog and you’ll have a dog you can live with, fish with, or whatever else you want to do, regardless of breed or pedigree of a dog.
To answer the question about Wolters, my grandfather was good friends with a trainer that helped correct Wolters dogs. I believe his books were the best selling dog training books of all time, but, fact is, Wolter’s never trained a dog in his life. He would pay someone for a finished dog and he would try to continue “training’ on his own, undoing much of the progress along the way. Then he would pay someone to correct the dog. This can be verified by many current breeders and professional trainers still in the business that knew Wolters personally. You can google dog training sites and find many instances of similiar acknowledgement to this fact as well. His program does not include the tools to properly build a groundwork of solid obedience and moves too quickly. It’s good to start early, but obedience should be solid before moving along in the dog’s training program.
For whatever reason, telling a person that their dog isn’t trained is like calling their first born kid fat and ugly (but 99% of the time the kid [s:35pvdk9h]is fat[/s:35pvdk9h] was beaten by Honey Boo Boo in a beauty pagent and the dog is a nutcase). For that, I don’t apologize. Disagreeing is like disagreeing with the laws of gravity (or global warming), yet plenty of people disagree with that, so I’m not suprised with the response here.
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