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Rating: 
Summary: A practical step by step guide for training a pointing dog.
Review: I've read every birddog book I could find since getting my Brittany last year. This book is the best. Authors vary widely in their opinions on proper dog training and a lot of the advice out there is plain wrong. Based upon my experience, Spencer's advice is right on target. What's even better, the clear and concise writing in this book makes it a very easy to follow guide. The first 98 pages provide an overview of birddog hunting in the U.S., and descriptions of 10 birddog breeds. For the next 146 pages, every sentence explicitly helps you understand the how and why of each aspect of training from puppyhood to the dog's first season afield.
Rating:
Summary: Unassuming and Better than Most
Review: This book is the best of the bunch so far. I have read several training books to work with my GSP, and this one has been the most enjoyable and most accurate. The purpose and methods are clear, and the results one should expect are also laid out nicely. One of the really great things about this book is the unassuming tone of the book. The author is clearly a working man who has responsibilities that include things other than dog training. After reading most other books, I come away feeling guility, as though I am torturing my dog by not giving her enough of my time. This author clearly understands that not every man has several hours per day to dedicate to training. I also like the way the author spells out so many things, but is noticably short-winded on one area: discipline. Too many books I read lean to far to one extreme or the other. Wolters says beat your dog into submission. Tarrant says don't touch your dog, but feel free to hand out emotional abuse as needed. I think effective training lies somewhere in between, and this book lets the reader judge the dog and doesn't spend a lot of time with high handed preaching(personally, I find that grabbing my pup's scruff and giving her a deep-throated growl usually conveys my displeasure more than adequately without needing to hit her as Wolter suggests, or punish her by withholding her food as Tarrant suggests). Anyway, the techniques are sound, I get the results I desire, and my dog and I have a lot of fun together in the process, so this book gets my vote for the best training manual I've read so far.
Rating:
Summary: Accurate, packed with information and easy to read!
Review: This is the first bird dog I own and every single item from the book which I have used in training has been on the button. The pleasure of seeing my dog behave as predicted in the field cannot be described, and would only be understood by other bird dog owners .
The success of this book is that it's easy to read, insightful and accurate in the advice it dispenses.
It makes it easy for the dog owner to move through that confusing and daunting task of training his dog from puppy to successful bird-dog without making a mistake.
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