The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

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September 24, 2006

Larry Dablemont: Teaching young dog new tricks

By Larry Dablemont

Globe columnist

The afternoon teal hunting at Schell-Osage Wildlife Area was good last week, and the young chocolate-colored Labrador was having a great time.

He had already retrieved five of the little biscuit-sized ducks, and we hid them up on the roof-top of the wooden blind, which was sunk down into the earth. We weren’t using the blind, we were just standing out in the high weeds around it, and when a flight of teal came streaking across the decoys right at us, we dropped two more.

They fell in the weeds behind the blind, or so we thought. One was found quickly by the young dog, and retrieved, but the other fell farther out than we thought, and we were down in the edge of the water, coaxing him to hunt for the “dead bird.”

Barlow was confused. There was no other bird to be found. But he wanted to please his master, so finally he just ran up to the blind, grabbed one of the ducks we had placed there, and came back with it. We wanted a dead bird, and he found one.

Remarkably, when we finally gave up, that pup charged out into the water and found that second teal, in a clump of smartweed several yards away. Then later, on the final bird to finish my limit, I watched it fall and marked it well, but couldn’t keep Barlow hunting where I thought it was. I finally let him go, and he found it with his nose, several feet away. I would have never found the duck on my own.

That young Lab shows exceptional promise. He has only been on a handful of hunts, but he watches the incoming ducks and trembles with excitement. When told to retrieve, he charges into the water with with tremendous eagerness.

Only a two-year-old, he has the instinct to retrieve, and he descends from dogs bred to be companions and hunters.

Every breed has changed over the decades, and Labradors are no exception.

Many of today’s Labs are fast, high-strung, small and wiry. That is a result of field trial breeding, and someone like me, who has no interest in competition, despises such breeding.

I don’t want a small fast Labrador. I want a heavy bodied, calm retriever with stamina and strength above speed. I want the intelligence found in the early Labs, bred more than 100 years ago to bring in tow ropes of ships off the east coast provinces of Canada.

Old-style Labrador men like me don’t much care for the little Labs, and the pointing Labradors bred today from years of crossing Labs and solid-colored German Short-Hair Pointers. If you want a pointing dog, choose a good pointing breed, don’t ruin the Labrador by hybridizing it.

There never was a better dog, to my way of thinking, for hunting waterfowl than the Labrador. The Chesapeake Bay retriever is right there with the Lab, but is a one-man, aggressive breed developed decades ago to work for the market hunter, and guard his hunting gear as well.

I’ve raised Labrador retrievers now for almost 40 years, and I love to hunt grouse with my Labs, and pheasants, because I train them to hunt close, flush birds from heavy cover and retrieve them. But mostly they are with me to find and retrieve crippled ducks, the ones which fall in cover, the ones in complicated places a hunter can’t get to.

My dogs are also companions, to set beside my chair and sleep and dream of the next hunting trip, to ride to town with me to pick up supplies, to balance my boat on float trips when I’m fishing alone.

Years ago, someone came to my home to buy a puppy, and they asked me if I could tell by looking at a litter which puppy might be the best one. I told them with a smile that I could tell when a litter was born which one would make the best dog.

They looked puzzled by that, and a little unbelieving, though they didn’t say so. I followed it by explaining that I felt the puppy which received the most time and attention would make the best dog.

And that is almost always the truth. If he has it in him to hunt, you don’t have to teach him so much as you have to take him.

Barlow has had lots of attention and time, but he’ll only make a hunter if he gets to hunt. Every trip he makes gives him an understanding of what it is all about. Every duck he hunts and finds and retrieves makes him a little more of a hunter.

As I watched him chase down a crippled teal last week, and the puzzled look on his face when it dived and disappeared for a moment, I couldn’t help but smile. I saw his great grandfather do the same thing. And his grandfather as well.

If you’d like to see Barlow, the young Labrador, Uncle Norten and I will be at the Old Cabin Sporting Goods Shop on Saturday, Sept. 30 from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. and he’ll be there with us.

We’ll be giving away some of my outdoor magazines, talking about the fall hunting and fishing prospects, and signing my books for anyone who’d like to get one. The pup is too young to have any stories, but Uncle Norten has a million of ’em.

Come by and say hello if you can.

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