Richie King

Bird orders are due to me NO LATER THAN WEDNESDAY! They are $10/ea and we have the limit of 4/per person. If you contact me Thursday, you are too late! Please respect that timeline.

I wanted to reiterate that if you are working a dog and are beginning, in the middle of, or almost out of Force Fetch, it is my suggestion that you do NOT order chukars. Your dog needs finished in this before you should be shooting birds over, or asking for any reliable retrieving on live birds (chukar, ducks, etc.) until you finish out that trained retrieve. This includes duck searches and drag work. This is not a suggestion to harm your progress, only to help so you don’t take any steps backwards and cannot give a command you cannot enforce (the golden rule!).

We would like to get an idea in the morning on who all is going to be testing their dogs in 2022, be it at Shenango or elsewhere and which test you’re going to be working towards. While we are a chapter that promotes excellent hunting dogs and testing is not required, we ARE a NAVHDA chapter and we will be urging members to test their dogs. It is very important for many reasons. I believe we have 4-NA and 6-UT by my count, but I could be off.

We will have our bird distribution in the morning. Please be there AT 8am or even a little bit before. You’d be surprised how much time that this takes to get folks their birds, paid up, etc. We are already on limited time, so please respect that and get your birds first-thing and have a method of holding them (bird bag, pet carrier, etc.). Don’t be that person and not have a method of holding your birds!

After birds are distributed, we will do some quick introductions, get a feel on where folks are at and what goals are. Please think about what you’d like out of these training days/the year between now and 4/2. It’s okay to be new and not really know, but have a rough estimate. It helps us plan the training days. Furthermore, please understand that you should be working on teaching/training your dog outside of these training days. It is not our job to train your dog for you. YOU need to put in the work as well. The mentor page has folks listed that can certainly help you and I urge you to call each one of them. There are a ton of ways to train a dog. Get a few opinions, make it fit your personality and your dog, and go from there with a PLAN and a BACKUP PLAN when things go awry…and they will. And that’s okay. Quick thinking can turn a potential bad situation into a good training scenario for your dog IF you planned accordingly.

Now on to the 4/2/2022 Training Day:

1) Bird distribution/payments (See Richie King if you need to pay still via check or cash day-of. PayPal after the training day is NOT an option).

2) Introductions/Goals

3) Socialization ON-LEAD in parking area

4) Split into two groups: NA and UPT/UT

5) Heeling for UPT/UT in pine woods on way back to blind area OR puppy exposure in parking area to open woods, fields, etc. depending on need of group

6) UT Field work and steadiness (again, for those that are ready for that and have FF’d dogs)

                             please bring your own shells for gunners to use, have orange hats, bird bags, gloves

7) NA Field work and exposure to birds, traps, blank pistol (depending on puppy’s prior exposure, etc) and bump&chase

MOVING FORWARD for May training days and beyond:

We have decided to have two different start-times for the two groups. This should help folks not have to wait around and there can be more availability to mentors to have more hands-on with our members in each group. There will be a hard STOP at the end of each group’s time. Ideally, we would have two different training days per month (one for each group). However, with the limited amount of mentors, time, volunteers, we feel this method of two start times should help folks get the most out of their training day(s). This will be discussed more on 4/2 in the morning prior to breaking out.

UT/UPT start time – 7am to 12p

LUNCH – 12-12:30pm

NA- 1p-3p

Attached are quite a few documents for viewing/reading at your leisure. Some are the same as last year as much time was taken to draft them. The Etiquette handout and the Welcome letter should be read prior to coming to the training day on April 2nd. Also, please read the “recommended gear” handout as well so you have what you need per each ‘event’, however I need to mention you should NOT be working each ‘event’ of any test if you are still in the process of teaching your dog what you want them to do. Really, only ONE thing should be taught and mastered at a time. IF you’re training your dog and are “polishing” per se, then that is a different scenario.

Please feel free to reach out to myself, Brian Rigot, or Lance Petro should you have any questions.

P.S: There have been reported incidences of porcupines at or around the grounds. We cannot control that, so please have your dog on-lead at all times or in your vehicle if you are not running them during their turn at any event. PLEASE KEEP IN-HEAT FEMALES EITHER IN YOUR VEHICLE AND FIND AN EC MEMBER. We will find an area in  both the running order and on the grounds to air/work her out. You WILL go last due to the heat for safety purposes.