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April/May 09
One on One
Bird Dogs and Ballplayers
Spring training has arrived.
by James Keldsen
Photos by James & Victoria Keldsen
If you are like most, when the last bird season came to a close, you put away the decoys, oiled and stored your shotgun, and relegated your retriever to the living room rug. The next couple of months were spent reading magazines, fantasizing about hunts, and surfing the Internet. Running through the yard to fertilize the lawn is probably the most exercise your retriever has been getting, but the warm weather and hope of things to come has you itching to get outside and work the dog.
But, before you start working your retriever, consider the old cliché, “Act in haste, repent at leisure.” After a long layoff, the last thing you want to do is start throwing bumpers without much thought as to what you are trying to accomplish. Something is not always better than nothing, and doing the wrong thing can have dire consequences. Slow down, get a general idea of what you need to work on, where you want your dog to be when spring training is over, and plan how to get there. Tailor the training to your dog’s current condition, and you will get the most out of your time and effort.
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