Barack (formerly known as Mr. Brown) is growing and learning quickly. Largely from observing his father and Uncle Ajax, at 13 weeks he has learned to come, sit, lie down, hop into and out of the car on command, stop and sit and street corners, release things in his mouth on command, fetch objects at [...]

Approaches to training a hunting dog to retrieve vary widely. As novice trainers, we trained our oldest dog Ari more by instinct than anything else, playing games and utilizing his natural desire to work. He is an excellent retriever capable of persistent long-range blind searches and it is very rare that difficulties occur. (He has [...]

I took Ari for a run and some retrieving practice in the woods this evening when it was just starting to get dark. I hid 7 “Verweiserdosen” (little green plastic jars with snap-on lids that have little holes in them to release the scent of the goodies inside) for Ari to find, as well as a [...]

Last Saturday I was invited to take Ajax and go to a local Saugatter (aka Schwarzwildgatter, a wild boar enclosure) in Zehdenick to watch the dogs train. There are basically two types of Saugatter – a large enclosed area for hunting or raising significant numbers of animals and smaller facilities of a few acres with [...]

There is one behavior from our new pack member that drives both Monique and me more than a little nuts. It’s his tendency to steal things and bury them in the garden. It seems that anything which catches his eye is game:  Ari’s toys, our couch pillows, shoes, garden trowels and other tools are on [...]

Since our visit to Denmark I’ve been interested in clicker training for the dogs and considered trying it. Wagga’s owner, Mona Lisa Jehg, uses it and gave us a very interesting demonstration of its principles.  She also showed us the book by Helen Philips (Clicker Gundog) which eventually led me to Positive Gun Dogs: Clicker [...]

After the MemoQ Fest 2009 conference on translation technology in Budapest last week, I stayed on for a few days to explore that wonderful city. Last Saturday I had the privilege and the pleasure to visit the Csővárberki Magyar Vizsla Kennel in Csővár. This is where Ari’s mother was rehabilitated after being abused by [...]

Where we live in Germany, tradition rules when it comes to training hunting dogs. When looking for training opportunities for our young wire-haired Vizsla Aristos, we ended up attending classes and working with one of the local Deutsch Drahthaar clubs, largely because there are no active groups in our area working with Vizslas. The people [...]