German Shothair Puppy Training Tips

As old Uncle Scooter always says, It's easier to teach your son how to be a Cy Young award winning pitcher without a baseball, than it to train your Shorthair without birds. So get the pup into a few birds at your local game farm or a reputable trainer. One thing you want to make sure of is, the trainer you choose keeps smoked bacon in the left front pocket of his Filsons. This is the only true way to tell if he or she is legit, I guess I'm a little old school. I still hunt with bells.
Signed
The Judge

German Shorthairs and Toilet Drinkin'

The unexplainable phenomenon, You can have fresh water in their dish and they will choose the toilet 9 out of 10 times. For the life of me I have never been able to figure this one out! And to top it off they have to "jowelate" all over the bathroom floor, so much for licking your chops. And lets not forget the big lick they want to give you right after "drinkin time" I know no one out there wants to admit they have seen this happen in their household but I know better. Does your pricey trainer have a solution to this one, of course not, his pointers do it too! I think it's time for all of us German Shorthair owners and trainers to come clean to the rest of the dog world.

Jowel Slime And Camp Breakfast

Our camper has a table that seats four, Myself, Scooter and two shorthairs. This can be quite challenging at breakfast time. It seems like the pointers like bacon as much as we do! And they will do anything to get it. Here's is the standard morning menu. 1 doz. eggs, 1lb. of smoked slab bacon, shorthairs don't care for regular packaged store bought stuff. A generous pile of greasy "Camp Taters" and a half loaf of bread dripping with butter. Now the trick is to keep the pointers from eating off your plate. My technique is to keep my right elbow in the pointers chest to hold her away from the fixins'. This has been a fairly successful method, except for two minor flaws.
1) My right arm gets soaking wet from the jowel juice.
2) German Shorthairs are very good at crane neckin'
After we finish, the dogs eat the rest, and off to the woods we go. Now remember, your right arm is wet and will slow your quick draw on flying Grouse down a great deal. At least thats the excuse I use. Bird hunters have way more excuses than fisherman bye the way!

German Shorthair Training.

Yard training at home works great and only works at home! How do you train a dog that only thinks with its nose? If you don't have access to some training birds or a game farm a "Pro" can be very helpful. Shorthairs come bird crazy right out of the box, you only need some fine tuning. And remember, it's a whole new ball game in the woods. So be patient and try to think more like your pup. All will be fine. Table manners will be covered in another post.

TO FILSON OR NOT TO FILSON

My favorite brush pants were finally beyond another repair. So while shopping one day, I decided to try a the Filson Double Tin variety. Talk about tough! Absolutely the tougher than a Texas Armadillo's shell. After a season with these pants I realized the adds were true. Now we hunt in all sorts of weather conditions up here in Northern Wisconsin. Moisture, thorns, and blow downs where you may snag & rip other pants just doesn't happen. These things will nearly stand up by their selves. After you slip them on they are very comfortable. Do yourself a favor and purchase the Filson suspenders with them, mine are over 10 years old and are like new.
Pointer jowel drool, splilled beer, greasy food and other little hunting dilemas have absolutely no affect on these babies.
Take them ice fishing as well, long johns underneath and your good to go. You can Kneel down in the slush and never get wet. Fish slime can be wiped right off and wind will not penetrate them.

Claim Jumpin'

Have you ever taken people hunting with you and then find out they brought their buddies to the same places when you happened to be away? This type of behavior among bird hunters is totally unacceptable and should not be tolerated. And to top it off these guys were friends. So what can you do to stop this disease you ask? Here is what we did.
1) clean your birds at their campsite while they're away
2) clean your birds where they park at their favorite spot.
3) Bring up the poor conduct in front of an audience at the local gathering spot (tavern) and let Scooter bash them with his literary arsenal, he actually made one of them cry!

Great Gun Dog Site

Here is a great site for gun dog enthusiasts, be sure to check it out!
http://www.gundogforum.com
Rebecca sent this from life in the U.P. She is a friend of ours. Take a look at her blog, find her in our followers list.