Why I Train

A friend asked a group of trainers on a Yahoo discussion group why we train dogs. I thought about it a bit and wrote a short answer. This answer is not nearly complete, I will add to it in the next few weeks.

Pat

Hi Donald,

Awhile back you asked for reasons why we train. I have thought much
about your question but refrained from answering for the same
reason I don't sing in public. In my mind my answer is beautiful and poetic, once committed to paper the words seem off key and not what I’d hoped.

However, because my choice to train field trial retrievers has in many ways set the course of my life, it’s too important a question to ignore. So here goes.

Why do I train retrievers?

For me the Retriever Field trial is the most challenging technically of all the dog sports. The competition is tough; there are many dogs entered in every trial that could win.

The dogs are unique and the tests so challenging that training must be tweaked for each dog. With varying terrain and test design every weekend, training is necessarily ongoing. Retriever training never becomes old or routine; it requires creativity in design and execution. The retriever is never “finished,” and after 25 years, I am still learning how to train them.

I have been privileged to work with dogs that continue to impress me with their athletic skills, their determination to follow through on a task, and their willingness to engage in partnership with me in a project that has arbitrary rules.

And I train retrievers because the experience has enlarged and enriched my life in so many ways. In the course of training and campaigning retrievers, I have:

… driven tree-canopied roads in Florida and marveled at controlled-burn pine forest, managed for quail …

… competed in custom-dug training ponds while keeping one eye open for gators …

… trained in the tiered ponds left by beavers as they worked their way down stream, building a new dam each time they worked off all the easy timber …

… seen the roads washed out when these ponds eventually fail in domino effect when the earliest ponds give way from abandonment …

… watched my children catch northern pike in the lake next to our summer training grounds in Northern Ontario, in answer to the loons calling us to fish every evening …

… trained in bug net suits to keep the biting flies and mosquitoes from driving us out of the country ...

… worked dogs in the eastern Sierras in ponds bordered by lush grasses, green from the irrigation water diverted to feed them, this surrounded by desert …

… seen a Merlin, America’s smallest falcon, tail chase a song bird through a meadow …

… witnessed an immature Bald eagle drive an Osprey off a pond in a battle for fishing rights …

… followed a moose calf for a half mile down a dirt logging road before it found just the right spot to reenter the woods …

… stood by my truck, the sun setting, soaking in the contentment that comes from physical labor and a day well spent, the evening songs of spring peepers punctuated by the thumping of tails and the crunch of kibble as the dogs finish their meal. ( added)

…crawled down a hedge row with my dog, surrounded by the cacophony of thousands of snow geese barking and yelping as they tumble in, landing all around us turning the cut corn field white.

… caught a glimpse of a mountain lion looping up a trail disappearing into the shadows one morning ...

… watched in awe as courting Red tail hawks flew death-defying aerial displays …

… trained on rolling Vermont dairy farms and in the sand hills of the Carolinas …

… tried to avoid, at one time or another, fire ants, water moccasins, black bears, alligators, rattlesnakes, sun burn, and frost bite, and …

… driven all night to get to a trial or to get home to my family.

Why do I train retrievers?

For all the above, and because the retriever sports have allowed me to earn a living and raise my family while working in the most beautiful of all offices, with dogs I admire, and people I enjoy.