Retriever Madness: Training the World's Favorite Gundog (Country Dog) - Hardcover

Bauer, Nona Kilgore

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1593787324 ISBN 13: 9781593787325

Publisher: CompanionHouse Books, 2009

Synopsis

Author Nona Kilgore Bauer begins Retriever Madness with a chapter called Know Your Retrievers,” and few know their retrievers like this expert author, trainer, and breeder. Bauer introduces the readers to the six retrievers recognized by the American Kennel Club, among them two of the most popular companion dogs in the world, the Labrador Retriever and the Golden Retriever, along with other superb overachievers: the Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Flat-Coated Retriever, Curly-Coated Retriever, and Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever.

Geared toward readers who are interested in working with their retrievers in their bred-for capacity hunting water fowl and upland game birds Retriever Madness is the perfect primer to getting started in the field. The book offers advice on selecting a puppy with hunting potential, giving future owners insight on how to evaluate a puppy’s birdiness, independence, prey drive, and personality. The chapter on bringing the puppy home gives recommendations for basic training equipment, including leashes, collars, dummies, whistles, starting pistol and the like.
Amateur retriever owners who hope to hunt with their dogs will find excellent advice for training for the puppy’s first twenty weeks of life, the most critical period for training any puppy. In addition to the basic commands (sit, down, stay), the author also explains the release command, whistle commands, forward and backward heeling, and wait.

Four chapters are devoted to beginning field work, presenting diagrams and step-by-step instructions and covering such topics as puppy marks, throwing, water retrieves, steadying, force-fetching, marking, executing blind retrieves and more. The author offers remedies to commonly encountered problems in the field as well as a complete glossary of terminology that all readers will find helpful in understanding the lingo of the field retriever.

About this title

From the Publisher

Kennel Club Books' Country Dog series begins with four titles covering a wide range of interest to urban dog owners, from hunting upland game and small fur with land/water retrievers and spaniels, to working with herding dogs in a hobby farm scenario, to tracking fallen game (as well as missing persons) with an able-nosed canine. The topics covered are as broad and far-ranging as the experience of the first four authors in the series.

About the Author

Nona Kilgore Bauer (La Belle, MO) is the author of no fewer than three dozen books on dogs, including individual breed books on all the retriever breeds. Her first book, The World of the Golden Retriever (1993) received the Dog Writers Association of America's Maxwell Award for best breed book. In 2007 she received that organization's highest award, the President's Book of the Year Award, for Dog Heroes of September 11th, which also received a Benjamin Franklin award from the PMA (Independent Book Publishers Association). Bauer has trained both Golden and Labrador Retrievers to All-Age Status in field trials and is also a well-respected judge for field trials and hunting tests for the American Kennel Club.

Paul Morrison (Howell, MI) is a breeder, trainer and judge of spaniels. His well-regarded kennel (Little Brownies) specializes in the state dog of Michigan, the American Water Spaniel. Morrison is the author of the only existing book on his breed, published by Kennel Club Books in 2007, in the Comprehensive Owners Guide series. He is a member of the American Spaniel Club and a judge for American Kennel Club spaniel trials.

About this edition

• Publisher: CompanionHouse Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1593787324
• ISBN 13: 9781593787325
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 160