Puppies on the Prairie
Development of potential field trial dogs

In the summer of 2005, I journeyed from the eastern Washington to the rolling prairies of South Dakota, on the invitation of Lou Gleber,.  Lou is an all age field trialer and handled dogs in the National Championship at Ames Plantation.

Being absolutely new to the whole summer camp training scenario and being my first time on the prairie.  I watched and learned as Lou worked.

One of the first things that caught my eye was the number of young puppies Lou had with him.  There were pointers, setters and a couple GSP’s.  After the 15th of July, we just let them run loose around camp – since our camp is over 1 mile from any road, this was really safe.  Being, typical South Dakota prairie country there were acres of ground for those puppies, to explore.  I watched with great delight as the puppies ran with me up and down the tree lines and prairies as I was roading dogs, or in the evenings when I took my nightly four mile run.  Pretty soon, instead of knocking the huge numbers of sharp-tails and pheasants, these puppies were pointing the birds and their littermates were backing.  All those dogs were 4 month old or older,  but it gave me an idea.  If it worked for older puppies – would it also work for much younger puppies.

In the early spring of 2007, we bred my field trial winner Tanner  to a bitch owned by Chuck Wilson that I had my eyes on.  Polly whelped 5 beautiful setter puppies on May 16, 2007.  Just in time, to take the just weaned puppies with me to the prairies in July.

With very high hopes I watched as they ran around the yard at summer camp, and watched as they pointed everything around camp grasshoppers, frogs, birds, and an occasional cow, you name it they pointed it.  At first, being youngsters they didn’t venture far, but pretty soon I noticed them working the tree lines where we had our Johnny house quail and chukar, that we released every day. Pretty soon, they started venturing farther out on the prairie after knocking and chasing quail, and stumbled on to the covey of huns  that hung around one of the old farmsteads near camp.

I watched as these dogs just got bolder and developed more independence with great delight.  Soon, I found myself leading a convoy of 4 or 5  little puppies on my four mile runs.

  At first, these young dogs stayed pretty close venturing into the road side ditches along my running route, but fortunately, South Dakota had a huge hatch of pheasants this year, and there we pheasants from young chicks to ¾ grown birds and it was not unusual for the puppies to knock 10 or more birds on the run.  I also found that as I ran some of the puppies dropped off, and upon return I would find them back at camp, while 2 or 3 stayed with me for the entire four mile run.

As those dogs grew and got stronger, they started venturing farther out on to the prairies and I would watch with great delight as they started to venture at first 50 or so yards away and knocking and chasing birds as I ran along on the road, it was not unusual to see 20 pheasants flying across the roads with one to three of the puppies in pursuit from the opposite fields.  As the summer progressed they started separating themselves more and more with a young male and female always running bigger and finding more birds than their littermates.  Although, by mid September, all but one of the dogs would follow me on my nightly runs and would go with us during roading in the morning, it was clear which dogs had the most potential for field trialing.

By mid August,  I had actually started putting the puppies up when they were not with me running.  I ran 3 days or 4 days on alternating weeks and on the days I was not running, I would take the bunch up a tree line or to a hog farm nearby that had tremendous numbers of pheasants.  I divided them into two groups for convenience, and since the puppies were pointing birds and backing each other for a period of time, I started carrying my blank gun.   At first they were only staunch for a few seconds and when they broke and chased the birds I would fire my blank gun when I thought it was appropriate.

One group – a male and a female were obviously field trial potential and the stars of the show.  These puppies by the time we got done on the prairies were running 100 to 200 yards or so, and were pointing and backing each other and in many cases would hold until I walked in front and flushed and fired the blank.

Both of these dogs have placed in competitive stakes – they are now just 7 months old.  The other 3 have been placed in hunting homes and we are hearing nothing but rave reviews about their hunting ability from their new owners.

What I learned from watching and training puppies on the prairie for three summers is something I had always known – wild birds make bird dogs.  But, before going to the prairies I had never had so many days with so many bird contacts for the young puppies.

The vastness of the prairie encourages young puppies to develop independence because they are not restrained for the most part and allowed to explore and discover things in a natural way  - they actually teach themselves to hunt without any human influence.

It develops dogs that are independent, know how to find birds, and in many cases are classy and stylish on birds.