If you haven't noticed, my dog Chester is a big part of my outdoor life. Dogs – not unlike humans - require regular reinforcement and training to operate at their optimum performance level.

Wow, how the years fly by. Chester is now five and a year from his prime. He has always been a great dog, easy to train, and eager to please. Even though he is fully trained, for conditioning sake and reinforcement purposes, I get him back into a work routine by mid July.

A working dog’s routine is a combination of obedience training, retrieving, and signaling audible and visual. Most new handlers make the mistake of only focusing on retrieving. The byproduct of such one-sided education tends to create a disobedient dog that is only able to retrieve a bird if it is seen going down. A disobedient dog can be extremely dangerous in the field in that they may be unable to hold his position at the moment of truth. By running into a hunter with his finger on the trigger and the safety off, the dog can cause a shooter to tip over and discharge his weapon on accident. The results could be fatal to the dog or another hunter. For this reason, a hunting dog’s training must start with obedience, and only progress once it has mastered the skill.