A whelping box does not have to be an individual box in your house, basement or garage, where constant attention to cleanup duty makes having a litter of pups a burden on your hectic daily lifestyle. The design I am going to show you works extremely well for our lifestyle because we are not home […]
Labs and Sharptails on the North Dakota Prairie
Originally appeared in Gun Dog Magazine (October/November, 1992) The Federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) has converted over two million acres of North Dakota land back into grassland, and after just a few years of CRP conversion, the sharptail and partridge numbers are on the rise. Here’s how you can use your Labs and retrievers on […]
Puppy Bedding From Shredded Newspaper
Maintaining the whelping box and providing a clean and healthy environment for a new litter of pups can be a chore. When my dogs whelp I make sure the mother is comfortable in her new home. The mother sleeps in the box for at least a week prior to whelping. My Lab’s litters are born […]
Puppy Growth It’s Like Clockwork
If you have ever had a bitch with a litter of pups, you probably noticed that on certain days the pups’ level of physical and mental development changed dramatically, that is, eyes opened, first steps were taken or noise awareness occurred. Mother Nature has developed a time clock for growth of our dogs. Over the […]
When Puppies Are Orphaned
The joy you feel when a litter of puppies is born can turn to heartache when the mother dies due to the stress and complexities of giving birth- or becomes too sick to care for her litter. It can happen to any dog. It happened to one of mine after fifteen years’ experience with healthy […]
Dog Energy Snacks Key to Canine Stamina
We have all seen a dog break down because of heat exhaustion or general over work. Those three or four day hunting trips that create such wear and tear on your dogs that they sometimes loose 20% of their body weight. We have read about the problems of giving a dog a midday chocolate snack. […]
Gun Dogs and Land Trapping
Written by Carl Altenbernd originally appeared in Gun Dog Magazine Land trapping is one of the most misunderstood sports practiced in the field today. It has been an easy target for the animal-rights groups, thanks to myths and misunderstandings. As a dog owner, you should be aware of the basics of trapping. The snare, conibear, and […]
Better Tasting Birds – Alter Your Field Vest
We pay a lot of money for a field vest that may feature recoil protection, a zippered game bag, bellows pockets, 24 shell loops and a water repellent finish. But most field vests have one major flaw: they feature a lined game pouch to protect your back and legs from blood. One of the […]
Cleaning Birds with a Tin Snip
You have hunted hard and had a good hunt. Your first job home is to make sure the dogs are clean, injury-free and fed. Next we will unload our gear and then tackle a cooler full of birds. I transport all my birds pre-gutted on ice. The feathers are left intact for identification purposes and […]
Water In The Field For Your Dog
Article originally published in Gun Dog Magazine. It is not uncommon for my wife and I to walk for three to four miles on a sharptail hunt in 70- to 80-degree early season weather and find ourselves getting weak because of dehydration. You, your hunting partners and dog need water. We are not into solid […]
The Spotting Scope – Make it a Useful Tool
Doing our homework prior to going to a new hunting area takes a lot of time. Interviews with local farmers, hunting buddies, state game and fish personnel, start our minds working. The study of topographical, plat book and other general maps narrows our plans but the actual scouting may be spent driving or walking an […]
Pheasant Tail Tracks
The 1995 Pheasant Season in North Dakota was just an average year. In the areas we hunt, above average snowfall and heavy summer rains hammered the Central Dakota’s keeping the Pheasant numbers in check. Our last weekend hunt was cold and windy. North Dakota Season runs into the first week of January. I would guess […]