I'm Walking The Dog...

     Chunk and I were out for one of our walks yesterday and I got to thinking about a question I get every once in awhile. It occurred to me that my reply has usually been less than adequate so I thought I might expound on it here.

     The question goes something like this: "Have you been doing much training lately"?

     My reply too often is "yes, we've been going for walks". Doesn't sound like much, I admit.

    While I am by no means a professional trainer, I do insist on having obedient, well behaved dogs, at least to the extent that I am able to train them. My method for obedience training relies heavily on walks, especially during the puppy years and is the time during which I do a lot of proofing for the commands we are working on. I do most of my own obedience training, relying heavily on what I have learned from others over the years and continue to learn from trainers today. Learning in dog training, as with anything else, in my opinion, is an endeavor that should never end until we are lying toes up and six feet under.

     I believe obedience work starts with building a strong foundation. I mean by this, that there are a number of commands that most dogs should know well and perform well in almost every situation. This begins, for me anyway, with sit, come, whoa (for pointing dogs), kennel and heel. There are others I add in as we progress but this is where I usually start. These commands are taught at home both in the house and in the yard. Once the dog appears to know the commands I start incorporating some of them into our walks as a means of proofing. I don't want to imply that I don't walk the dogs until they learn these commands, they walk with me from the time I get them, but the "formal" walks start once these command have been learned. The dog-walks at this point are all on leash.

     It is important to keep in mind that dogs are place oriented. This means that they relate a command to the place they learned it. So for example if you teach a dog sit in your kitchen, he might not sit when you tell him to at the playground. You have to teach the dog to sit in several locations until that command becomes generalized for him so that he will obey the command no matter where he is.The easiest place for me to accomplish this "command generalization" is on our walks. I can give the command in several locations, sometimes having to re-teach the command in each new place as we move around. I also change up the routes we walk and give the commands in different places along each route. This is the first step for proofing the commands.

     The next step is incorporating distractions. Did you ever notice that some dogs will obey their owner perfectly but as soon as another person, dog or other animal enters the picture the dog doesn't obey at all? This is a typical sign of a dog that has not been trained to distractions. My walks are a great way to accomplish this step. While we are out for our walks it is not uncommon to encounter other people out walking, sometimes with their dogs. There is also a horse farm up the street where sometimes the horses will be close to the road. There is also a house on one of our routes with very active bird feeders which in addition to birds, attracts all other manner of wildlife. Not to mention the number of cars and trucks that go by. Having a dog sit still with his attention on you while a gravel truck or motorcycle goes by can be quite a task. These walks provide an opportunity for all of this.

     These steps all lead to our eventual goal of being able to perform these obedience commands off leash no matter where we are. I won't pretend that I am successful with every command in every location or every situation but I think we do pretty well. Last year I was hunting with a friend of mine up north and we had to walk up a power line for a short way until we came to the covert I wanted us to hunt. I had cast my dogs off as we started out, but noticed immediately that a brush hog had recently been run up the line, which left a wide track of thousands of sharp stems sticking out of the ground. Think of a field filled with pungi sticks. Not wanting my dogs to slice their bellies open I whistled them in and heeled them, off leash, as we continued up the line. They obeyed perfectly. This is just one example of how teaching the commands and proofing them leads to an obedient dog. Walks for me are key to this process.

     Here is an example of how one of our walks might go. We'll assume the dog has learned to sit, come and heel in the yard. We move out to the driveway, dog is seated to my left, on leash, with his attention on me. I give the command to heel and off we go. If his attention wanders off me, I'll get it back. If/when we encounter a distraction I command sit and we stay there until the distraction passes. Then I'll command heel again. Now I will head to the horse farm and walk up and down the road, working on heel and sit in front of the horses for awhile and then we move on. Many times the dog will be on a flexi-leash and I will release him from heel and let him take line out. While he is away from me I will command sit. Then I will call him in. Once back to me he heels again and we repeat this during the entire walk. His attention is on me, and mine is on him. I'm watching his demeanor, I'm watching his tail. I want that tail wagging. I'm making sure he is not acting stressed or confused. I also make sure that when I give a command he obeys it and correct him when he doesn't. 

     Once I'm confident that the dog will consistently obey all of the commands on our walks, then I start to prepare him for going off leash. But that is another process for another day. Suffice it to say that these walks are crucial for building the foundation for which all of the other training will be built upon. So if you ever ask me if I've done any training lately and I reply, "we've been going for walks", you now have some idea of what I mean. 

     Enjoy your dogs,

      

     Ken  

     

The Cocker Pups Continue To Shine

     My friend Tom and I headed back out to a couple of local coverts today with Chunk and his sister Izzy in tow. Our quarry today as always was partridge (Ruffed Grouse) and woodcock. It was a beautiful fall day with blue skies and colorful foliage to make it a great time to be in the woods.

     Today we ran Chunk first. Tom and I spread out about thirty yards or so and let Chunk cover the ground around and between us. He did a great job of patterning and staying within range and responded well to his commands. To my biased eye he looked to be doing very well for a pup his age. He had one woodcock find which unfortunately we were not able to get a shot at. Chunk took it in stride and was right back to hunting while we worked our way back to the truck.

     Next up was Tom's dog Izzy. She was all business as soon as we put her down. She's a natural and did very well. She handled very well for Tom and she wasn't down long before she flushed a partridge. He made the shot count and Izzy made a nice retrieve.

     We made the move to check out a different covert and brought Chunk out again. He did really well once more, covering the ground with enthusiasm. I cast him toward Tom and then around back to me. He hit the area just to my right and put up a woodcock. I shouldered the Browning, let some lead fly, and down came the bird. Chunk made the retrieve and brought it to hand.

     We put Izzy down for one more run and though she was game, Tom and I were spent. We pushed through one last covert to give her the work but found no birds there. We headed back to the truck to water the pups and put them up for the ride home.

      I continue to be impressed with how well these pups do especially considering their age. There is an old saying somewhere that "Breeding Tells" and that truly seems to be the case with these pups.
Now it's time for the Geezer Hour, a time for some fine scotch and some storytelling.

What a Great Weekend

I'm just coming off a busy & fun-filled weekend which actually started on Thursday. I hit the woods with the cocker pups, Chunk and his sister Izzy & her dad Tom D. We were able to get the pups into several woodcock and grouse. They both performed admirably. They patterned well, were well behaved and when we ran them together they didn't spend the time playing like a lot of pups do. They were all business.

Then on Saturday, Ben & I headed north with the two setters, Gunner & Gally and of course Chunk. Gunner went first but we had to pick him up early due to a minor eye injury which is not uncommon. We gave him some field first aid and TLC and brought him back to the truck. He's fine.

Next we brought out our "Go dog" Gally. She wasn't down five minutes and had a woodcock pinned. I couldn't find it so I sent her on a relocate (which we had worked on this summer with Churchie Kennel & Gun Dog Training) and she executed it to perfection. I moved in and flushed the bird and it worked out just like in the magazines. We ran Gally some more but it became apparent this covert was sparse. We headed back to the truck and headed up to the next place.

We put down Chunk at the next spot. Some kind of ground critter apparently left a lot of scent because his nose never came off the ground. We tried moving up the trail to get him out of the scent and start patterning him but he kept doing the same thing. He was acting more like one of our beagles used to than a bird dog and seeing as I wasn't after any ground critters we picked him up. Whatever it was it left no tracks but it definitely was not anything we were after.

We swapped him out for Gally and once again she was all business. It wasn't long before she had a couple of grouse finds.We only got a look at one of them, but she really performed well. The rain started coming down harder and since Gally had already been down longer than I typically like to run her this early in the season we headed back to the truck. I was pretty beat by this point anyway. We watered the dogs, checked them over for burrs and other nasties, then took a ride to scout some new areas for next time.

When we got home I had a geezer, turned on the TiVo and watched Notre Dame beat Stanford. Yay!!! Ben went out to pick up some stuff for his next morning's duck hunt and took his brother out for ice cream.

Sunday I had a gig at a local apple orchard which is always a fun time. Laurie, Ben, Gerron and Grace came to see us and pick apples. During one of our sets a little girl, maybe three years old, came up with us and danced while we played. Then while we were on a break, a teenage girl came up, borrowed a fiddle and entertained the folks until it was time for us to play again. When I got home Laurie had an apple pie waiting for me.

All in all it was a great weekend but I am whipped. I'm taking today off.

Ken Belanger's Guide to Lawn Maintenance

I didn't initially have any inclination to write about lawn care but after a friends Facebook joke, I figured what the heck. There won't be any pearls of wisdom here on how to have your very own pristine lawn because, well, my lawn is not what most folks would consider pristine. Which brings me to my first point.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder:
     The best lawn I ever had was at our first home in Gilmanton Iron Works, NH. It wasn't the best lawn because it was weed free, perfectly manicured or anything like that. In fact it was quite the opposite. The house was out "in the country" and with no neighbors nearby we were the only ones that saw it for the most part. I mowed the section closest to the house if and when I felt like it and left the rest to grow into a small field of wildflowers which were actually the flowers from resident weeds that happened to grow there, stuff like Indian Paintbrush, Buttercups, Mayflowers, Chicory, Feverfew, etc.
To me that lawn was beautiful because it was green (mostly) and took up very little of my time.

Once we moved to our current home in Gilford it was a new ballgame. We are surrounded by neighbors, each with well kept yards and right next door to us is the most beautiful lawn that I've ever seen in my entire life. Fortunately, it is also owned by one of the nicest neighbors we've ever had who has always been willing to lend advice or a helping hand whenever I've asked for it. As a result I try to maintain a reasonable looking yard so at the very least I won't be dragging nearby property values down.

What type of lawn do you want to have:
     During our first years here I tried to "keep up". I tried to have the perfect lawn. So I asked around, found out what others were doing, what types of fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, etc. along with application times and rates. That worked well for awhile and I was content with the results. The lawn wasn't perfect, but it was pretty good and I was satisfied. A few things happened though which caused me to reconsider my approach. The first was our son Gerron was getting old enough to be spending more time outside in the yard. Next, we acquired our two English Setters who were out on the lawn a lot as well and then the brand of fertilizer I was using jumped up to over $40.00 per bag, and today it currently sells for over $50.00. Call me cheap but I won't spend that much money to dump something on the ground four times a year no matter how good the company claims my lawn will be.

So I searched for alternatives. First I got to thinking about my vegetable gardens over the years, always organic, always came out well and I never had to worry about what I was ingesting. Although I will admit Laurie and the two oldest kids probably had some concerns the first time they saw me mix up a barrel of my father's "Sweet Tea" recipe. Oh and by the way, for anyone mixing up Sweet Tea, don't leave the barrel just outside of the bedroom window. Yes, I did that once and when the Tea is made in 50 gallon batches, it's there for the summer. You're not moving it.

Then came the romantic getaway that Laurie and I had taken to the Wentworth Inn in Jackson, NH a few years ago. It's an old hotel that maintains the charm of the days of the "Grand Hotels", and the landscaping seemed to reflect that. The lawns were well manicured but in addition to the grass, they contained clover, dandy lions, sorrel and other weeds we used to have in our lawns as kids growing up. I started to remember those summer days sitting in the shade at the homes of friends while trying to decide what to do. You probably remember as well, "What do you want to do"? "I don't know, what do you want to do"? All the while we'd be pulling off pieces of sorrel and chewing on it to get that sour/lemony something taste. Mostly though I remembered how rich the soil was in everyone's yards and when we wanted to go fishing, we'd just grab a shovel and dig all of the worms we needed. I started to compare that image to the soil in my yard now and how it looked when I would dig a hole for one project or another. It contained a couple of inches of topsoil, then sand, then gravel with the roots of the grass growing barely much longer than an inch in length with nary a worm to be found.

I also started to think back to the house in GIW and how much we looked forward to seeing the flowers grow up threw the lawn. That did it. OK, so now I knew what kind of lawn I wanted; one that looked well maintained but with a variety of other plants and flowers we looked forward to seeing, but mostly clover. These would no longer be weeds, because they are intended with few exceptions. (There are weeds like Creeping Charlie, that can completely take over a lawn so I do what I can to avoid it). Now, what's next?

Grow the lawn that you want:
     I started researching organic lawn care and learned what I could about it. I found various products I could use if I chose to and frankly some of them are even more expensive than what I had been using before. So you won't be surprised to learn that I passed on those. What I did do though is this. First, I started with a soil test. I dug up soil samples from different parts of the yard,  labeled them and sent them off. Within a couple of weeks I received my results. The front yard which has been the most problematic was in need of lime. Lots of it. So that was the first ingredient added. Then I raked in a top layer of compost to about a third of an inch throughout the front yard. For the rest of the yard I bought a bag of organic fertilizer that I could spread with the same spreader I had been using previously. The pleasant surprise here was that instead of having to worry about application times, e.g., so many hours before or after a rain, and wait so many hours before people and pets are allowed back on the lawn, the instructions for this product came down to: spread it whenever you want, as little or as much as you want, and people and pets can be on it while your spreading it. That was nice.

Another item I came across expounded upon the virtues of clover of which there are many, not the least of which is its nitrogen fixing properties in the soil. It was also good to be reminded of the fact that at one time clover was considered an important ingredient in lawn seed and every bag of grass seed included about 5% clover. So off to Agway I went and I bought a small bag of clover seed to mix along with my grass seed, which I then spread after having aerated my lawn. Now, it is true I did screw up the ratio a bit but math was never a strong suit of mine. However, I think it's fine and more importantly so does Laurie, she loves it.

When it comes to maintenance, I mow my lawn at the highest setting the mower will go. This is to encourage root growth and development. I also mulch my clippings as an added way of providing nitrogen to the soil. The only exception is I will bag the clippings if the lawn has grown too long to mulch due to long periods of rain or whatever. Lastly, when it comes to watering, I don't do it very often. If we haven't received any rain for awhile, I will water the lawn until it gets about an inch of water. Again, this is to encourage longer roots.

I do admit, though that there are times when I will still use an herbicide. I do this only when the weeds on the section of lawn that borders my neighbors start to encroach on his lawn. He puts in a lot of time and effort into his lawn and I want to be considerate of that. So on that section only, I will spot treat for weeds.

This will be an ongoing process which will take time. Basically, with this approach I'm feeding the soil which will in turn feed the grass. The results aren't in yet, but so far I like what I see and so does Laurie. Already, I've noticed more depth to the topsoil, many more earthworms, and lots of bees when the clover is flowering. Needless to say there are many ways to maintain a lawn and I have no problem with whatever others want to do. In fact, if someone were looking to have the perfect lawn I would refer them to my neighbor. But as the title suggests this is how I have been doing it as of late and expect to continue to do.

Summary of My Approach:
Mow High
Mulch Clippings
Water Seldom But Deeply
Use an Organic Fertilizer Once or Twice a Year (I do Spring and Fall)
Spot Treat for Weeds Only If or When Necessary (Unless you're pulling them by hand)

Enjoy,
Ken

Allow Myself to Introduce.... Myself

The first time I had thought about giving blogging a try was when I was first editing and posting a few things for my friend Dogwood Saunders. Now that I've been able to set him up with his own account and have walked him through the steps, it seems like a good time to try it for myself.

My main interests pertain mostly to the outdoors and sports so that is what I will probably be writing about, especially if it relates to my dogs. At the present time I have two English Setters and a Field Bred English Cocker Spaniel, FBECS for short. I also love the "Beautiful Game" or soccer as it is usually called in this country and of course Notre Dame Football. 

Then of course there is music which I really love, both listening to it and playing it. Music of all kinds interest me (except rap, just could never get into it) and my music collection reflects that. I have recordings ranging from Antonio Vivaldi to ZZ Top. I enjoy playing Bluegrass and Country music the most and really enjoy jamming with friends. There is just something about people getting together with a variety of instruments and making music together that has always appealed to me.

So I guess in the end I may be writing about any of these topics or something else that might strike my fancy, (is that a phrase anymore?) and I hope you might find something worthwhile. If you have any ideas you can let me know at nhgundogs@gmail.com. 

Thanks,

Ken Belanger