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Excerpts from the Book of Sporting Dogs © 2017 Excerpt from Chapter 1. Some Terms and Definitions Book of Sporting Dogs © 2017 A few years ago I was working in the front of a store in a lumber yard. A large adult Doberman Pinscher came trotting in the front door of the store ahead of a man and woman. The dog came up to the counter that I was behind, sniffed at me, then trotted over to a couple shopping in the first isle. Everyone that could see what was happening began to cower. One man climbed up on a tall stack of carpet to escape. Another couple hurriedly exited the store, got in their car and drove away. The man that had come in behind the dog went through and out another door to the yard, and the woman was looking this way and that way and moving around in the store. I asked the woman "Is that your dog?" immediately followed by "Dogs are not allowed in here." She responded with "He is his own dog." and "He can go anywhere he wants." This little story provides some good material for this book, and some of it comes from these first four sentences, two I said to her, and two the woman said to me. First I asked: "Is that your dog?" which was the wrong question, but it didn't matter because her answer was as good for my purposes as a simple Yes. My second statement to her was "Dogs are not allowed in here." which was basically a lie. She didn't know that though, I had never seen her before. You always hope for the right language on first meetings that allow you to develop a rapport and come to an early understanding, especially when the issue has critical timing. In this I was failing. I would have interpreted her statement: "He is his own dog." as just silliness if her body language (dog's too), had not been screaming: I AM READY TO FIGHT AND THE PURPOSE OF MY VISIT IS TO TERRORIZE EVERYONE IN HERE! I will come back to this story later, but here I wish to point out how simple was this woman's second sentence. Not just simple, but also I believe true. It matches with my theory that dogs do what they want. A lot of people say or act like they know what is in a dog's mind based on human reasoning (or lack thereof). If I was writing a book on human behavior and said that a human being does what they want, somebody calling themselves a 'Slave' would sneak behind my back and claim that they wanted to disagree with me but didn't. Or you would have the person who comes up with something that they really want, then they think about it and think about it till they want it more and more, they would mull over how much they want it, and then deny it to themselves to get to heaven. My theory is not that a dog is higher level intelligence than human, but it definitely goes along with saying that a dog is not human. The theory is: Dogs do what they want. This assumption is part of the basis of the definition of the Sporting Dog. A Sporting Dog is a dog who has had some behavioral instruction from a human. To a dog, doing what they want when following instruction from their human is a sport. A dog will do what you ask because they want to make you happy. I will put to you that a dog will not do chores because they have pride in creating something or being productive, or other human constructs. To a dog, the activities are a game played with you. So you say that the work that your dog does is way too important to be called a game. That your's is a serious Service, people's lives are at stake, the training is rigid regimen, work not play. But did you remember to train them to not wag their tail? Working Dogs are a subset of Sporting Dogs. If I had told you some more of the story about the Woman and Doberman in the Store, (the rest of the story follows later), you would have seen how my first attempt to communicate was using human English language, and my further communications form rapidly evolved to more like a mad dog language; and now that you have seen the first logic of this definition of Sporting Dog, maybe you will now say, 'Oh, he thinks he is a dog!' Yes, it is true that I have a systematic approach to beginning communications with any dog that I meet. But you will just have to take my word when I say that I have been literally told by several dogs that I do not speak 'Dog' well. Try as I may, I am not a dog. So what we want is a useful definition for human to human understanding. So we are back to why Working Dogs are a subset of Sporting Dogs. Work can be fun! So whether or not the Bomb Sniffing Dog was just playing a game, you would say that his Handler was NUTS if he was having fun on the job. But isn't it 'Sport' that keeps this team in shape between jobs. Wasn't it 'Games' that were used by the initial Trainer of a Bomb Sniffing Dog. (Is this dog handler nuts?) This dog could let another dog take his next gig at any time and go compete in a dog show instead. Shows are Sport. Ok, A show can be good for locating a Breeder, can demonstrate to new Trainers and Handlers how it is done. So you know someone who makes their living off of prize money from shows. A show is Sport and only a subset of us are Working. Likewise, only a subset of Retrievers, Pointers, Scent hounds, etc. team up with Hunters who make their living from the hunt. Hunting for game is a Sport. Nearly all dogs qualify as a Sporting Dog and it is based on whether some human has tried to teach them. Excerpt from Chapter 5. Hunting with Dogs Book of Sporting Dogs © 2017 Years ago when I was taking a Shotgun Instructor course at Purdue's Camp Ross, One of the Teacher's rules was stated as: "Rule #1 - Don't shoot the Instructor." Although he said this as he was standing 25 feet out in front of the firing line and tossing quarters in the air, we were only using low air powered BB guns to hit these, (and not one of us wanted to take the course over again with an Instructor whom we had shot). Now my first thought in beginning a chapter on Hunting with dogs is to say: Rule #1 - Don't shoot the dog. But everyone who knows me already knows that this is not rule number one. Rule #1 is follow the Firearm Handling Axioms 123: 1. BE CAREFUL and THINK! 2. Always Point the Muzzle in a Safe Direction! 3. Be Sure of your Target and what is Beyond It! (to print a copy of these go to: http://www.usc.life/fha123.html ) And of course, everyone who knows this also realizes that 'Don't shoot the dog' very succinctly falls under each of the Axioms 123. I think that most dogs can pick-up pretty readily that getting in the line of fire is not good. As an adolescent on my first jack-rabbit hunt, I was amazed to see how my grandfather's dogs seemed to know the perfect range in which to root out the rabbits in my path, and how after jumping, the dogs stood in their spot, rather than chase the rabbit, to give me clear range of fire. These Collies had several duties on the ranch, but the training that they received had mostly to do with herding the cattle. Everything else seemed to just come naturally. Someone may have trained the older dog to freeze after jumping the rabbit, but I am pretty sure that the two younger dogs learned it from the old dog. But many lesson will be taught by the human trainer. I think of basics like teaching your Retriever to not eat the game bird, but bring it to you instead. (For me and my first Retriever, the harder lesson was to drop it upon returning instead of playing tug-of-war with the trophy.) And such environment problems as training your Hound not to chase the coon across a busy highway is not something that you leave to another dog. All dogs are natural hunters. The dog training will have to do with helping to reduce the chances of injury to the dog and with the interaction that we will have as the human part of the hunting team. Our guns are one of the unnatural parts of many hunts, so the Gun-dogs need to be acclimated to the loud sound, and possibly learn about line of fire. The dogs will not understand all of the extra-natural advantages of hunting in a team with a human, but pleasing the trainer by following every command issued is better reward than the best of coon skin hats. The complete Book of Sporting Dogs © 2017 is in hardback printed volume. Fine for the library of every Dog Handler. email to Press@USC.training for availability. |
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