Tag archives: hunting

Cranial cruciate ligaments in dogs perform the same task as the anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, in humans. They both act as important stabilizers inside the knee and both can be damaged during exercise. In dogs, the ligament and related damage can be more complex than in humans, resulting in varying degrees of lameness and tearing.

While at the Purina Sporting Dog Summit, Dr. James L. Cook, DVM, PhD, DACVS, DACVSMR, discussed several topics, one of which was the importance of warming your dog up prior to exercise and competition.

“Never take a dog straight from a crate to the performance realm,” said Cook, referring equally to the conformation ring, agility course, hunt-test or field-trial line, etc. “If you’re going straight from the crate to performance, you’re an idiot.”

Now, that might sound harsh to those of us who pull our dog out of the box and get in line for competition, but the truth is: he’s right. Would an elite human athlete get out of bed and immediately strap on the skis, run a marathon or get on the court of competition without so much as stretching? Would you get off the couch and undergo physical exercise ...

A medium-sized hunting dog that originated in Hungary, the vizsla has a devoted following of both hunters and conformation enthusiasts. While they are essentially pointers – locking up on game and indicating its location by pointing with their nose – they do have an inherent desire to retrieve as well. If introduced to water and encouraged to work in it, they can make passably retrieve waterfowl in many settings.

Perhaps the most recognizable feature of the vizsla is its coloring; shading of solid rust gives it a very distinctive look. The coat is short, flat and dense without an undercoat. They are medium in size, standing a strict 21 to 24 inches in height at the shoulder and run 40 to 65 pounds, with females being slightly smaller. While they are lightly built to withstand the rigors of the hunt, vizslas are robust and well muscled – even sinewy. Agile and energetic, they were bred to hunt the fields, forests and waters of Hungary with power, drive and endurance. That being said, they are “people” dogs and make one of the best family companions of all the pointing breeds.

According to the AKC, the vizsla's ancestors were hunters and ...

Another of the ancient breeds, the greyhound has long been associated with nobility and depicted hunting with them in artwork, as well as described in official records. The greyhound, with its long, lean body and legs, has the ability to accelerate quickly and maintain some of the fastest sprinting speeds of any land mammal on the planet. While their original use was for hunting, in more modern times they’ve been used for lure chasing and other forms of racing. With the rise of adoption centers, many retired racing greyhounds are now finding popularity as pets in the home.

Records of greyhounds date to the Celtics in Europe, although some contend that they originated in ancient Egypt, with modern lines tracing first to private 18th Century studbooks and then public kennel club records in the 19th Century. They arrived in America with Spanish explorers in the 1500s.

With incredible sprinting speeds, strength and acceleration, greyhounds can chase down just about anything that runs. Throughout history they’ve been used to hunt a wide variety of game, from deer, foxes, rabbits and hares to antelope, gazelles and wolves. In America today, they’re still used for small-game hunting of rabbits, as well as coyote ...

A yearly NFL tradition is about to take place: the draft. Professional football is big business, with big money involved. In 2013, the NFL topped $9 billion in revenue, and commissioner Roger Goodell has a goal of annual revenue surpassing $25 billion by 2027.

Who a team selects with specific draft picks represents an investment of millions of dollars and can affect their on-field success for years to come. A bona fide star can spur a team to victory, packing a stadium, which increases concession sales, parking revenue and more. When merchandising is considered, a $20-million investment in a player can pay off.

Conversely, when a team selects the wrong player, it can cost them dearly. Not only do they miss out on a game- and franchise-changing personality, the investment in time and money the team makes on the wrong player is lost as well. Reaching for and overpaying a player can continue to impact a team years after the player washes out of the league.

When millions of dollars are involved, nothing is left to chance. College players hoping to break into the professional ranks undergo profiling that would make the NSA proud. The dossier a team collects on ...

Athletic and intelligent, the boxer has perhaps one of the most malleable of personalities and range of inherent traits, allowing it to perform in a wide array of roles. From companion and competitor to guard and war dog, the boxer is as fierce and intimidating as he is lovable and laughable.

Good with children, being both affectionate and patient, boxers do best when companions are near – be them human or canine. They enjoy a group setting, and will engage in cuddling, playing or working. They have a protective streak, which in combination with their affectionate nature makes them a popular choice among families. The breed holds strong in the top ten of breeds registered with the AKC, typically averaging as the seventh-most registered dog.

The boxer can trace its origin to 1890s Germany and the now extinct Bullenbeisser dog – a mixture of mastiff and bulldog. Directly descended from these dogs, which were used for fighting and hunting, the boxer was at first employed in a similar manner but performed the duties with more athleticism. While at first used as catch dogs on the hunt, boxers were later used as military dogs during World War I – performing as ...

The Deutscher wachtelhund, or German spaniel, is a medium-sized, thick-boned, muscular gun dog with a thick wavy coat that protects it from briars and cold water. While they’ve been around since the 1700s, they’re a little-known versatile gun dog in both the United States and its home country of Germany.

In the U.S., the wachtelhund was recognized by the UKC in 1996, and the breed standard was published in 2004. The AKC is currently accepting applications for its Foundation Stock Service, which requires acceptance from a domestic or foreign registry. In the case of the wachtelhund, that registration comes from the German Wachtelhund Club, which oversees the Deutscher Wachtelhund of North America, and has very strict criteria for acceptance. In Germany, the wachtelhund has only been allowed to be owned by hunters, gamekeepers and foresters – few citizens even know of the breed.  

While the wachtelhund has a spaniel look (in both size and appearance), and they do flush feathered game, they are a versatile breed that is expected to hunt not just birds but also furred game such as rabbits and foxes – and even bigger game like stag and wild boar. They tend to air scent ...

The Brittany is a medium-sized bird dog that originated in France in the 17^th Century. They were an all-purpose game dog in Europe, and were expected to hunt, point and then retrieve game – everything from feathered prey to furred game such as rabbits.

Once known as the only pointing spaniel, the term ‘spaniel’ was dropped from its name in 1982 because of such conspicuous differences in hunting styles; Brittanys point, while spaniels such as the cocker and English springer flush game.

Topping out at 20-1/2 inches and 50 pounds, the Brittany comes in several coat colors – orange and white or liver and white in either clear or roan patterns. The coat is a single coat, as opposed to a double coat like spaniels or retrievers (dense, insulating undercoat and weather-resistant outer coat), which makes it easy to maintain, and it’s usually dense and either flat or wavy. The tail of the Britt is short; if puppies are born with a long tail, it’s usually docked to the appropriate length – especially if it’s meant to work in the field.

Brittanys are an energetic, athletic dog that are rockets in the field – they’ll work tirelessly in ...

Great trainers don't just run drills or take their dogs into a field and let them chase birds. Great trainers start each session with a goal and specific task to accomplish. They set up drills and scenarios that help teach the dog bits and pieces of a larger concept. By micro-focusing on areas that might prove problematic to the dog, they can anticipate trouble and administer well-timed corrections, praise or avoid the issue altogether.

If you're not anticipating how your dog is going to behave to a situation, you're not really training; you're just reacting. If your dog makes a mistake because you didn't anticipate the problem, you're effectively teaching him to do it wrong. To train after reaching that point requires that you correct the dog to teach him that's not what you wanted.

Sometimes negative reinforcement is the way to go and what is required, but to wholly rely on it is not only lazy, it's unfair to your dog.

With a balance of positive and negative reinforcement properly administered, you can teach your dog how to react to very complex scenarios. And, as George Hickox and Dan Irhke both pointed out at a ...

You can run drills all day long, day after day, and you will produce a hunting, obedience, agility or whatever other kind of dog you're interested in producing. It's not until you understand why you're running them and what effect they, and any subsequent corrections or praise, have on your dog that you start to really become a trainer. Plugging along from Point A to Point B and beyond will build a foundation for your hunting dog. It's vitally important that your dog have that foundation to build upon, and it's also one of the biggest problems amateurs have with training.

We get excited to "get to the fun stuff" and skip all the small steps that teach a dog to correctly carry out that fun stuff. When someone says their dog doesn't do something correctly or only does X, Y or Z incorrectly, you can almost always bet that the issue was caused by glossing over or altogether skipping a step in their foundation.

However, just plugging along and running drills, exercises, obedience and applying praise, corrections and the like in a more or less ordered sense isn't what it's all about ...

The first week of December saw an arctic front blanket much of the country with subzero temperatures, snow and ice. Travelers were stranded in airports for days, household pipes were frozen and children left the house in multi-hued layers of clothing. It’s only December, and there’s a high likelihood of another arctic blast or two hitting before the end of February.

While it’s natural to protect our children from the discomfort of freezing temperatures, our dogs feel the temperature change, too. When it comes to canines, there are a few simple precautions you can take to protect them at home and in the field.

Provide proper shelter: If your dog spends his day outside (and hunting dogs should spend some time outdoors to acclimate to dropping temps), he needs shelter from the elements – snow, rain, wind, sun, heat and cold. A dog house with insulation of some sort is all that’s required. Canines have evolved to keep themselves warm, so just giving them a spot to get off the cold ground, some blankets or hay to nest in and a roof over their head is all that is required.

You can augment the basics with heat sources such as mats ...