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Gun Dogs

  • April 12, 2013

    Give Your Dog a Haircut Before the Shedding Begins

    By Chad Love

    About this time every year, when the redbuds start blooming, the toms start strutting and the white bass start running upriver, I must deal with coat issues. My chessie has one of the densest coats I’ve ever seen, far thicker than any of my other chessies, my old lab or virtually any other dog south of the Arctic circle. I've always joked that she’s the musk oxen of the canine world. I don't complain during duck season, because neither icy water nor thorn-tipped thickets can penetrate her coat. But eventually, the bill for that dense coat comes due, in the form of a period of time in the spring when her winter coat starts blowing out. It starts with a dull sheen to her coat, perhaps a little tuft here and there, floating on the breeze, caught on the fence. But like the first few gentle flakes that precede a raging blizzard, those innocent-looking fuzzballs are the advance guard, the shock troops for an annual deluge known around my house simply as “the shed.” [ Read Full Post ]

  • April 8, 2013

    A Must-Read for Dog Lovers: 'Goodbye to a River' by John Graves

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    By Chad Love

    Last year while on the road, I stumbled across an old, old book in thrift shop. And yes, I am a thrift shop junkie. In college I even worked for a couple years in a local Goodwill store. But I still have no idea what "popping tags" means...

    Anyway, the book was a copy of John Tainter Foote's "Pocono Shot," which was about a bird dog. The book had an incredibly touching and poignant inscription from a grandfather to his grandson on the front endpaper. You can read about it here. [ Read Full Post ]

  • April 2, 2013

    Gun Dogs: Study Suggests Diet Can Improve Sense of Smell

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    By Chad Love

    The endurance benefits of feeding a high-protein, high-fat diet to working or sporting dogs are undeniable. I like to feed a super-premium 30/20 performance blend food. Some guys feed a performance food during hunting season, others give their dogs a high-protein performance food year-round — whatever you choose, these diets help to keep our dogs running. Now research suggests that certain diets can also improve a dog's ability to smell. (Hat tip to the excellent Living With Bird Dogs blog for the find.) [ Read Full Post ]

  • March 18, 2013

    Keep Dogs from Roaming with an Underground Electric Fence

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    By Chad Love

    Ideally, we'd all like to have acres and acres of land for our dogs to roam and play in without fear of them wandering off and getting lost, hit by a car or stolen. Unfortunately for most of us, it rarely works out that way, and owning a dog generally means conforming to the often inconvenient or difficult realities of our lives.

    Such is the case with me. Although I live on a couple acres in a semi-rural environment, I cannot, for aesthetic, topographical and financial reasons, build a fence around my entire property. It's not a problem most of the time. The dogs are always with me when I'm outside. They know not to chase the neighborhood deer and they generally stick close to the house. But when I'm inside for any length of time, whichever dogs aren't on house rotation must be kenneled. I know many people do it, but I'm just not comfortable letting my dogs roam free when I'm not out with them. [ Read Full Post ]

  • March 13, 2013

    Study: Domesticated Dogs Impact Wildlife Populations

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    By Chad Love

    There's been a lot of discussion lately about the negative impact that free-roaming cats have on wildlife populations. So just to be fair, here's some food for thought: according to a recent study, free-roaming dogs aren't exactly saints, either.

    From this story on livescience.com
    "...a new study from researchers at the University of Oxford reminds that domestic dogs are also killers and disease-spreaders that can pose conservation problems when they're allowed to roam. [ Read Full Post ]

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