(Retrievers) By Bill Tarrant. 500 pages. Illustrated.
Hep Pup, Fetch It Up! The Complete Retriever Training Book by Bill
Tarrant
If your Pup could walk into a book-store and buy one training manual as a gift for both himself and you, the person he's taken for life, this is the book he'd choose.
Why? Because if Pup could write a book - from a dog's point of view - to teach anyone how to train any breed of gun dog to fetch any bird his master wanted in hand, these are the things he would say.
And when Pup got old, after a lifetime of experience in the field, and reviewed the book he would have written, he'd conclude, "I wouldn't change a word."
This highly readable book is packed with helpful information:
Details on the revolutionary force-retrieve method
Advice on teaching a dog to mark and fetch
How to introduce a dog to water
Techniques for correcting faults in old dogs
Tips on keeping your dog in top physical shape
Tarrants great love for dogs and his commitment to training " with your head, not your hand" is evident throughout these pages. "Dog training must be based on mutual trust and respect," he says. "It can work no other way."
Whether your training for hunting or fiels trials, you and Pup will both benefit from Tarrant's wisdom and experience. Simply put, HEY PUP, is Bill Tarrant at his best.
Bill Tarrant has won practically every award given by the Dog Writers Association of America, some more than once, and has been described by Hunting Retriever magazine as "one of the premeir dog writers in America." His column on gun dogs appears regularly in Field & Stream, and he has written five other books on the subject.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Milk-drips on the kitchen floor
And I do not walk alone
If a dog owned me
West slope realists
1. THE NATURE OF THINGS
Outsmarting ourselves
2. IF YOU WERE A PUP WOULD YOU PICK YOU?
Got your head on straight
Looking up from the pup’s viewpoint
Temperament
Hey Pup, welcome home
The kennel blind pup
Got the time?
A piece of land Pup can call his own
Wheels
Dudes aren’t trainers
The good earth
3. THAT SPECIAL PUP
The retriever
What’s the breed for me?
Not so fast there buddy
Facts and figures
But liars can figure and figures can lie
Other choices to be made
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe
Congenital defects
Pick of the litter
A tip of the hat to Mr. Moneyfeller
4. THE FIT PUP
The four maladies
Distemper
Diarrhea
Parasites
Mange and fungus
5. HOUSEBREAKING PUP
The Four Ts
Self Feeding
Your in this thing together
Salt and Vinegar
Problem pup
6. THE FIRST TRAINER
The basics
Stay
The litter box check cord
Using our head
The snubbing post
The three-chain lead
7. BEFORE THE CAST
Pup in the Foreign Legion
The way it’s done
I said “No” and that’s final
The treat
The hand signal
Introducing the gun
The first commands
The cane
The nature of man
8. THE FIRST FETCH
The first retrieve
The first planned retrieve
The problem retrieve
Whistle versus voice
Casting pup
Ram it
Pup’s first double
A special place for a pup
9. SOME BITE WITH OUR BARK
The slip end
The pinch collar
The invisible you
Sit and heel
Come and stay
Down
On the line
Fine tuning
10. MARKS
Getting the basics
Presenting the mark
Here a mark, there a mark, everywhere a mark, mark
Helping Pup find the bird
Doubles
How we play the game
Switching birds
Over and under
Introduction of the bird
Pheasants and ducks
The bird thrower
11. WATER
Introduction to water
The first water retrieve
Bringing to old dog to water
Double water retrievers
The plastic fly swatter
Advanced angle water entries
Triple retrieves
The errant feather fetcher
The cheater
12. FORCE BREAKING A PUP TO RETRIEVE
The way it’s done
Positioning Pup
A fight on your hands
The nerve hitch
The fulcrum
Once can be enough
What it’s all about
The frozen bird
13. THE BLIND RETRIEVE
The busted camera
And away we go
Bridging a problem
Being pro
14. NEVER ARGUE WITH SUCCESS
Semi-blind
Loud mouths never win
Electronics
Poor people have poor ways
The baseball diamond
The option posts
Between pillar and post
World series ball diamond
Holding a line
15. A WET PUP
Moon shots and water blinds
Water blind philosophy
What the judges will give you
The winner is always wet
The first water blinds
If it’s all the same to you, I’ll just sit this one out
The whiprun dog
The electronic collar
Mopping up
Drying out what we mopped up
16. THE PROBLEM WITH PROBLEMS
The gun shy dog
Hip dysplasia
Heartworms
Hard mouth
The dog fighter
The trash chaser
The big faults
As taken from the nest
17. HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE
Housing
Kennel run
Sanitation
Shipping crate
Roading
Birds
Shipping
Breeding
Whelping
18. FIRST AID
Lacerations, Immobilizing and muzzling, Punctures, Fractures, Shock, Heat Stroke, Frostbite, Poisons, Toxic exposure, Eye injuries, Spider bite, Snake bit, Accidental gun shot, Bee sting, Burns, Choking, Foreign object in ear, Electrocution, Drowning, Skunk spray, Dog fight, The first aid kit, Conditioning
Now you can force a dog to do something before he's accepted you -- and this dog will grudge you, fight you, be a resentful worker. Or you can read him, see when he's ready to take the lesson, get done what you want, and have a happy worker.
Sure, there's lots you've got tolearn. But ther's something else more important than gaining dog knowledge....
Help me choose:
