Customer Reviews

Bird Dog: The Instinctive Training Method

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I read several critics reviews before making the purchase and was very excited about an instinctive method book. I read it from cover to cover over a weekend. I then went out Monday evening, full of warm and fuzzy feelings about dog training, to apply what I thought I learned and found myself staring at the dog not knowing where to start. I understand that the books overall theme was not just about yard work but I found the book more philosophical about the method and fell short where the rubber meets the road. I did use some of the material to tweak others teachers methods (Tarrant, Long or Smith). The book reads like a compilation of magazine articles that are loosely related and rambles a little to much for my taste(side bar information about his favorite dogs). It is a good winter fire side read and I highly recommend it as that, but not as an owners first hands on training reference.

Ben Williams is an excellent author and story teller. He passes along his 40+ years of experience of training, hunting and generally living around bird dogs. His insight into bird dog behavior and their various personalities is invaluable.

However, this book is not a how-to guide for the common bird dog owner. Mr Williams has a large kennel, ample training area and hunts 100+ days a year. I need training advice and tips for a single dog owner hunting and trialing about 30 days a year.

This book is a great read for anyone who enjoys training bird dogs and wingshooting. Mr. Williams knows bird dogs and how to train them. He never sweats the small things or mistakes dogs make. He is very patient and kind. Once I started to read this book, I couldn't put it down. Thanks for the wisdom.

Bird Dog by Ben O. Williams is one of the best bird dog books I've read, and I've read many books on this subject in addition to several upland hunting magazines I subscribe to and read regularly. Williams is a legend in upland bird dog training, and I wish that I had read this book as one of my first bird dog training books many years ago when I was starting out. It would have helped me get off to a much better start than I did. The book is full of common sense information, and what I found most useful (compared to other books) were the anecdotal stories that Williams related about various dogs he had owned and how the training methods he describes affected or impacted his dogs over time. That was something I found in no other book. Given Williams lifetime of experiences and the many dogs he has owned and trained, this is not trivial. I found the book entertaining, informative and useful to me is spite of the many years that I've been working with bird dogs myself. So whether you're first starting out, or been at it for some time, I highly recommend this book, and most others written by Williams. He is an excellent author, an expert on the subject of upland game birds and bird dogs (especially Brittany's). His books are well written and a pleasure to read.

Enjoy, I did....

Any bird dog training wannabe should read this book. Ben gives some great perspectives and alternative approaches. This is not a 'gadget heavy' methodology. Common sense, repetition, exposure, and decent canine genes are the path to success.

It is just plain refreshing to read Ben's writing.

I have read many of Ben Williams' works, including Pointing Dog Journal articles, Wingshooter's Guides, and other books, but I still have yet to find what all the praise is about. Sure, I'm envious that he spends 200 days a year afield. With that, any decent dog should be good. Williams' text is thin on substance and speaks in generalities that common sense tells one. His voice has no flow, a point which is worsened when the editors make breaks between the paragraphs. The editors also have other faults which shouldn't be shouldered by Williams ("chuckar" and "chukar" listed on facing pages).

Save yourself the time and money; Williams summarizes the topic as: the quality of the dog all comes down to genetics. He then changes that to 95% genetics and 5% training. He also says training approaches are individual based on owner and dog personalities. Nobody needs to read this book when that is the case.

I trained my first dog using the Delmar Smith method, supplemented w/ info from friends, pros, and other authors (when things were not working out). I bought and read Mr. Williams' book and finding it an enjoyable read, was nevertheless a bit disappointed, I must say. His method centers around running experienced and novice dogs together so the youngsters will learn the game of hunting; good when you already have a string of trained dogs.

However, upon bringing my 2nd pup home, this book really hit home. I ran the pup w/ the older dog ~50% of the time afield and had him searching, pointing, and backing at 7 months w/ little work on my part. His tips for working dogs together were invaluable and have really helped my pup come into his own as a bird finder!

In addition, this book is loaded w/ great tips on hunting w/ pointers in general; it is well written and comes well recommended (after you check out the Smith and West methods).

This is another wonderfully insightful read from a fellow who has more pointing dog experience in his little toe than I contain in my whole body!

That said, this book would more accurately be titled Bird Dogs, because Williams' training method hinges on venturing afield far and often with young dogs running alongside experienced dogs. He lets them do what they are bred for, learning from the their experiences, then shapes their behavior subtly and elegantly. There are great observations and lessons within, but it is not a how-to book!

This book was extremely helpful with my second and third dog, but not as nearly as much with my first (save for club days or outings with friends).

Like other reviewers I have read many training books and have found most of them either/or difficult to follow, long winded, methods that require two or more people, endless convoluted philosphies, oftimes practices I do not like and so on. Lets face it, we just want help to train our dogs...where to start, what are the cliched 'basics'? But no single book is going to give a panacea to all training concerns. However, for all time I have believed and had long come to the same conclusions as many of the tenets put forward by Mr Williams.
I do agree that there is a degree of brevity in some of his explanations of certain training but then he can be forgiven for some of that...it would seem like second nature to him. Long had I agonised over my dogs' retrieving, but here is this man who has done more hunting than I could ever dream of, backing my findings that once we were out hunting the retrieve was as natural as if they had been doing it in their sleep!
I liked the little stories regarding certain dogs...it makes the book more personable. At least, the reader knows that there really were and are dogs to the names he gives.
But the one comment he makes about the individual and his dog is crucial to the whole aspect of gundog training...your expectations of your dog are not necessarily those of the next hunter. And his ideas on connection with the dog, less whistle and more walk truly are the basis of happy hunting.

I wish this was the first hunting dog book I picked up. Very good stuff and every person raising a dog for actually hunting purposes should have it. Most of his philosophies are what I've learned in that last 6 years working behind a good dog. You just need their trust, respect, and a few basic commands they obey. Great book for training an actual hunter.