It’s one thing to be a dog lover. But it is quite another thing to be good at training man’s best friend. With this thought in mind, the first thing I did 11 years ago, when buying an English setter pup from Newburgh breeder-trainer Ed Brooks, was to spend some time in the field with Ed and Sally, my new setter. When a person has a way with dogs, it shows. Ed Brooks had that special touch. He helped me “finish” my dog. Not a patient man, I soon learned from Ed that I — not my dog — was the biggest obstacle in my gun-dog’s learning curve. In short, Ed had to teach me before we could teach my dog.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I have a real admiration for men or women who have a special way with dogs. I call these folks the dog whisperers. If you watch, carefully, a skilled dog handler working with his dog, you’ll see a common trait: patience. Incredible patience.

A few weeks ago, not far from the Ocala National Forest in central Florida, I spent an enjoyable morning watching another Maine dog whisperer put his Golden Retriever through its paces. It was an education. Before the morning was over, I was left astonished by the matchless man-and-dog teamwork and precision retrieving that I witnessed.

The dog, Windy, is a four-year old golden. A model of an alert canine, she is a highly charged, medium-size retriever with boundless energy and an intense desire to please. Her trainer, Fred Hurley, is a friend from Wayne, who once was my boss at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Having fished and camped together for many years, I have known him to be a compulsive perfectionist who puts his all into everything he does. However, his penchant for training dogs is a side of him I was not familiar with. He once mentioned the fact that, in his earlier days, he and his wife Carol had been immersed in training retrievers and attending field trials.

This particular day in Florida, Fred, Windy and I drove to a field that was large and broken up by small, hilly mounds and small ponds. Not being well versed in retriever training, my expectation was that Fred would toss out a few bumpers, Windy would fetch them until she was tired, and that would be it. As it turned out, it was a lot more complicated and challenging than that, for the dog and the trainer. In fact, what I saw Windy do, under Fred’s capable dog handling, blew me away.

It went like this. With Windy tethered near the car, Fred and I walked 300-400 yards and deposited orange bumpers at various strategic locations. Some were on the other side of ponds in a straight line from the dog’s location. In a couple instances, Fred drove a colored stake in the ground so he could pinpoint the location of a bumper once he got back to the dog’s starting point. The object of the exercise, I learned, was to execute what is called a blind retrieve. (Dogs, or course, are color blind and can only find the deposited bumper by scent identification.).

The idea is for the dog, upon command, to “line out” from the handler, find the distant bumper by scent, fetch it and return to the handler. The well-trained retriever, en route to the bumper (or bird), will do two things: first, it will remain steadfastly on a straight course no matter what the obstacles (water or rough terrain), and, second, it will, if it begins to stray to the left or right of a line to the bumper, stop at the handler’s whistle.

When Fred blew his Roy Gonia mega whistle, Windy would stop her “line out” and look back at Fred for “a new course to steer.” Once Fred had her attention, he would cast her to the left or right with a raised arm. Windy, with a new course to steer, would line out until she detected the planted bumper, fetch it and return to Fred.

As a longtime upland hunter with gun-dog experience, I was still astonished at the unbelievable distances of the retrieves, the speed and energy of the dog, and, perhaps most of all, the remarkable working partnership I saw between Fred and his Windy. As any gun-dog handler knows, especially those of us who have been frustrated by it, the biggest hurdle is to teach the dog that it is not an independent entity, that it needs to work with you to get the job done right. Through patience, persistence and dedication, I can attest that Fred has forged a wonderful working dynamic between himself and his dog.

“What’s the secret?” I asked Fred.

Fred says, “Progress from one stage to the next is gradual and based on successful completion of each stage. If problems arise, the dog is brought back to the foundation blocks that are needed to progress successfully to the next stage. Training should be a step-by-step process that sets the dog up to succeed, rather than having it do things that it is not likely capable of accomplishing. The latter only frustrates the dog and the trainer and is counter productive.”

He makes it sound textbook simple, huh?

Of course, like any endeavor, whether it be golf, music, or dog training, what you put in is what you get out. Knowing Fred, he has invested a lot of hours and diligent, patient work to get his dog to this level.

“How many hours have you been at this with Windy?” I asked.

“I couldn’t even venture to guess, but it’s a retirement project that keeps me active and my brain working,” he said.

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal and has wriiten his first book, A Maine Deer Hunter’s Logbook. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WCME-FM 96.7) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected].