By David DiBenedetto

While Pritch’s training is progressing nicely, I’ve noticed a bad habit starting to develop. During our sessions, Pritch will fetch a dummy, come running back, and then often blow right by me like I’m invisible. She usually gets about 10 yards past me before she starts frolicking. In these cases, I reel her in with the check cord but am unsure of the proper way to correct the problem. (To see an example just click on the video.) At its worst, Pritch will make a large half circle on her way back to me, sometimes dropping the dummy and not returning.

By David DiBenedetto

As I start the long journey forward with Pritch I often find myself thinking about dogs past. There was Flapper, a mutt that truly defined the term "mash-up," but it was Salty Dog, a yellow Labrador with middling retriever skills, that provided the bulk of the memories—some of which are now legend in my family.

By David DiBenedetto

Before I brought Pritch home a few months ago I hardly knew anything about clicker training. As I’ve mentioned, I had been out of the game for some years and many of my early mentors were devoted to old-school training methods. So yesterday morning I watched with interest when clicker-guru Karen Pryor was introduced on “Good Morning America” to give a demonstration and shill for her new book, Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What It Teaches Us About All Animals.

By David DiBenedetto

I was a fisherman long before I became a hunter. And I still spend a large majority of my free time in a boat on the coastal waters. No surprise that when I was a kid my first pooch was a yellow Lab named Salty Dog. We spent our summers in a jonboat exploring the waterways around Savannah, Georgia. And that’s exactly what I want out of Pritchard. I want her to be as comfortable in a boat as she is in field.