How does one become a pro?

[stuartjeff]

I keep hearing people referring to others as pros. I'm curious about how you pros out there became pros? How long have you been paid to work with dogs? How did you get your start? What does a typical day consist of? Is there a particular part of the country that most people in your line of work live in? How long did you have to stay in the game before you built up your professional confidence? How young were you when you started? Do you expect to stay in the game until you retire? Pardon my ignorance but I've just never had to pleasure of conversing with a professional trainer. Please share.

[gonehuntin']

I keep hearing people referring to others as pros. I'm curious about how you pros out there became pros? How long have you been paid to work with dogs? How did you get your start? What does a typical day consist of? Is there a particular part of the country that most people in your line of work live in? How long did you have to stay in the game before you built up your professional confidence? How young were you when you started? Do you expect to stay in the game until you retire? Pardon my ignorance but I've just never had to pleasure of conversing with a professional trainer. Please share.

You can get hired "green" as a pro and the head trainer will teach you. I had always love dogs, all dogs. I began messing around with field trial labs in British Columbia and became addicted. I got to be friends with a pro up there named Roy Lowe and he taught me a lot. He had spent several months with Rex Carr. I then saw, in the Retriever Field Trial News and add for a trainer needed. I flew down, interviewed and was given the job. Move lock, stock and barrel to there.

It was a huge kennel and that's what intrigued me. We worked with retrievers, spaniels, pointers; all hunting dogs. We could run 120 dogs in training at a time. Each trainer trained 40 dogs. Day started at 6AM and ended about 8PM, or when we were finished. Kennels were kept immaculate so as each dog was brought out, any dirty kennel was cleaned. I became head trainer and had the reputation of being able to train any dog no matter the problem. I learned more every month than most learn in a lifetime. I had two of my own field trial dogs and each night after work, trained them. Rex would let me use Carr Lab if I needed.

My own dogs began showing well in the trials as well as a couple of client dogs nobody else had been able to train so people started watching me. After a couple of years of training 7 days a week, 40 dogs a day, I'd had enough, moved to another state and opened up my own kennel. Your first years are tough. Anyone can hang up a shingle and say he's a pro. The proof is in the pudding as they say. It took me a year of people evaluating me and my dogs to begin sending me field trial dogs. I had gun dogs from the time I opened. At first, you only get the bad ones and it's a no win situation. If you wash them out, you're a failure and the dog should have been sent to someone else ( which it undoubtably all ready had been), if you make a good dog of it, everyone thinks it was a good dog anyhow and would have been great no matter who trained it. If it is mediocre, it's a flaw in your training program. It takes time.

Then the good dogs start coming your way. I had one 3 1/2 year stretch where I got lucky with dogs and produced 4 field champions, 18 qualified all age dogs, four dogs on the national derby list, 10 with licensed derby points, and 6 with all age places and jams. If you're not aware of it, this is a phenomenal 3 1/2 year record.

Death's in my family forced sale of the kennel or I'd probably still be doing it today, but I would not be handling field trial dogs; only hunting dogs. Old clients kept trying to ship me dogs but I refused them all. Very few people are gifted enough to be a professional trainer. Some are too soft, some too brutal, some too lazy, some just right. I'll tell you this: They were the greates and most rewarding years of my life.

[Devils Creek]

Great story!!! and so typical.

In the straight pointer field trial world, most guys start out as an assistant or scout for a known established trainer, and work for peanuts for a few to a whole bunch of years, before they feel they can attract enough dogs to build a reputation.

Sometimes just the luck of having one great (and I mean really great) dog with some major wins will kickstart your whole career.

Scott Beeler just left Ricky Furney, and has started his own kennel in Texas in the last couple of months.

[ssjetset]

gonehuntin ,what part of N.E. wisconsin are you in? Just curious as I have a home in Marrinette county.

[EWSIV]

Rex would let me use Carr Lab if I needed.

Wow. So you worked for Rex Carr?

[gonehuntin']

To answer two questions, I am from Door County (Sturgeon Bay). This year most of my hunting centered around Pembine, because that's where I found the most birds.

I occasionally worked with Rex Carr, never for him. Most people don't know it, but Rex at one time was a pointer man and was in partnership with another trainer. The two split off, Rex specializing in retrievers, the other in pointers. He then also switched to labs; that's where the money was. In my lifetime I was blessed to work with many great retriever trainers: "bleep" Sampson, Doug Orr, Warren Grimsby, and others. "bleep" and Doug were both great friends. Doug would watch me work a dog and might comment "So that's how you do it huh?". I knew instantly he didn't approve. We were once having cocktails outside his trailer in AZ. and I was petting one of his dogs. Very quietly he said "I look at my dogs the same way I do my wife. I don't like anyone else putting their hands on them". Doug would never TELL you how to do anything; he'd make a statement and let you figure it out. He once had a dog named Carnation Butterboy that won a national. A yellow lab, he was so good judges would set tests just so Butterboy couldn't win. When Carnation Milk had a retriever kennel, Doug was their trainer. The biggest mistake I ever made in my life was not taking him up on an offer he made. He pleaded with me to come to Oregon with a few dogs and live and guide with him for the fall when the National was over. I declined saying I just couldn't take that long a break from training. He understood and a few months later died of cancer. If I'd have known he had it, I'd have dropped everything and been with him in an instant. Life is a very fragile thing and true friends are very few and far between. I still think of him often and rue that decision. He was a wonderful trainer, friend, and dog man.

[Ruffshooter]

Gone Huntin:
Thanks for sharing that. Sounds like you made some great true friends and have had and have ,a good and interesting life.

[Mav&Lizzy]

Wow what a great story. Over the majority of my adult life (I'm 34) I've wanted to become a pro, although I had no clue what a pro did, all I knew is I wanted to training pointing bird dogs and get paid for it. The last 2 years thats been all I think about. Maybe someday when the kids are gone and I and momma are retired I can find someone to train me

[Don]

Great story gonehunting, you did it the right way. For the purpose of AKC, if you take someone's money for training their dog, you are a pro, even if you stink! Unfortunatelly if a pro quits for, two years if I remember correctly, he revert's to amature status. I did it without a tudor just by reading and screwing up. Not a good way to learn. My book was Delmar Smith, that man is my god! Then I found Greg Koch and really learned how to use the e-collar. Today I don't train any more but think that I know less now than I did when I started but at least now I have some idea of where to go.

The best way to learn is in my opinion to pick one expert and learn that way. You'll change as time goes by but you'll have a base to fall back on.
My method for training dog's became quite different than Delmar's but you can see his influence in everything I do.

I'm going to retire in about a year and was going to get a Boykin just because I never had one. Still think I will but you guy's are really giving me the itch for another GSP!

Oh well it's gotto go somewhere or I'm gonna split. A picture of me and My old Hannah. She was 13 yrs old here and it's the last hunt she ever went on. Lost her at 16 yrs.

[Wagonmaster]

Beautiful picture Don. Just beautiful.

[Stump]

Don't worry Don you can help me with my pup and help teach me. I'll drive to ya. Hint hint!!! Awsome pic