Big Bend Blues: Chasing Quail Through the Desert With a 1-Year Old Puppy

An electrifying jolt shot through my leg like a bolt of lighting, and yet the air still crackled with dryness. We yearned for a storm to soften the West Texas elements, but more immediately a four-inch cactus spine lodged in my blood-soaked pant leg stung like crazy. It was the first of many of this wasteland’s formidable defenses. The spine that had pierced deep enough also penetrated my psyche otherwise preoccupied with the pervasive silence only broken by loose desert rocks trodden by weathered boots and the paws of a single-minded puppy.

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Cowboy Bird Dogs: One Man’s Alternative

In my late teens, my friends abandoned me during hunting season. Eventually they swayed me to try hunting. I’m glad I shot my first deer and had some fun with rabbits and squirrels, but these activities didn’t exactly pry me away from trout streams and BMX. Then one fateful day I went sage grouse hunting and bird fever struck, hard. This was different, dynamic, and I wanted more. Look out birds.

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Key Traits for Your Ideal Bird Dog

When it comes to bird hunting, having a top-notch bird dog by your side can make all the difference. These skilled canines possess an innate ability to locate and retrieve birds, making them an invaluable asset for any avid hunter. However, not all bird dogs are created equal. To ensure you have the perfect companion for your hunting adventures, it is important to consider the key traits that make up an ideal bird dog. In this ultimate guide, we will explore the essential qualities to consider and the must-have traits in a top-notch bird dog.

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Final Preseason Training Tips from the Pros

It won’t be long before field training, conditioning and obedience work give way to the true satisfaction of being back in the woods and fields enjoying the hunt with our canine companions. Here are a few final steps that some Eukanuba™ pro trainers take to get their dogs ready for the season opener.

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Help Unleash Your Sporting Dog’s Potential

Hard charging sporting dogs—like English pointers and setters, Labrador and Golden retrievers, English field cockers and Boykins, the dozens of versatile breeds among others — are wired to work. Their work requires fuel appropriate to their exercise level. Some dogs need fuel for quick, intense bursts of activity while others need endurance to help them along their half or full day’s work. 

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How to Feed Your Sporting Dog

Canine nutritionists have long known that nutrition is key to performance, but how much and when we feed our dogs is just as important as what we feed. These factors can impact your dog’s energy levels, physical fitness, and post-hunt recovery. Here is what you need to know to help keep your sporting dog in top form throughout the year.

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The New Southern Bird Hunters Association Aims to Amp Up Field Trials

On the night of February 10, 2020, Marty Robinson and three friends were in a texting session about field trials, when their conversation took an urgent turn.

“We felt that something bad was needed to change things up,” Marty recalled. “There have been no changes to field trials in the past 145 years. We wanted to fortify the sport.”

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Know Your Sporting Dog’s Individual Nutritional Requirements

The fascinating part of sporting dogs is that they’re all so different. Never mind the fact that you can find a setter that casts at 40 yards, one that runs inside of bell range, or wins AA as the late Shadow Oak Bo did (twice in fact). That’s a wide range of performance in just one breed. Start to include other pointing, flushing and retriever breeds and the view expands. The icing on the cake comes when you add in 30 breeds of versatile hunting dogs acknowledged by The North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association (NAVHDA).

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