COLORADO SPRINGS (AP) – By age 18, Ben Garcia was hooked.
“I bought a (Labrador retriever) in college (when) I was going to school in Greeley and started duck hunting,” Garcia said. “That’s how the whole thing happened – pure addiction.”
That addiction has made him a rising star in breeding and training a variety of bird-hunting dogs here in Colorado. Garcia, from Longmont, trains both pointers and flushers in Calhan, and has been refining his training techniques for 16 years.
Whether a hunter uses a pointer or a flusher depends on individual preference, but training the dogs well is where Garcia comes in.
Pointing dogs walk around until they get the scent of a bird. When that happens, they will stop and point with their snout, holding position until the hunter makes his move.
Flushers, on the other hand, run in tight circles, attempting to spook the birds into flying so hunters can take a shot.
Both types of dogs will track a downed bird and softly carry it back in their mouth.
“We have 12 weeks to make an impression on 15 years of life,” says Garcia, whose training is highly individual.
Garcia takes out one dog at a time, leaving about 10 others on a chain that he refers to as “the chain gang.” Being on the chain teaches the dogs to be calm and patient while Garcia takes other dogs in the field.
Using a whistle, hand signals and voice commands, Garcia controls how far the flushers run ahead, and he directs them to find birds that have been intentionally scattered in the area.
Pointers, by contrast, are on a long leash that gets the dogs used to running a specific distance ahead of the hunter.
Getting a dog whose parents were hunters is key, and genetics are a big deal to Garcia.
“What I look for in a breeding dog is what the breeders have decided are genetically the best parents: One that doesn’t pace, one that’s calm on its game, calm in the kennel and calm being in the house,” he said.
Training dogs with those good traits is all about repetition and sometimes breaking learned behaviors. One of the hardest things about training “is when owners have taught them behaviors that go against what hunting is,” Garcia said.
“If we have a dog that’s been taught to play tug of war and then you shoot a rooster, you go to get it out of their mouth and they want to play tug of war with the rooster,” he said.
Getting dogs used to the hunter shooting is something Garcia also works on.
“The old theory of taking them to the gun range and shooting over them and then they’ll be gun-broken isn’t true,” he said. “Their genetics is to hunt, not have a gun shot over them.”
Garcia is a fan of all breeds that he has trained over the years, and he has a hard time picking a favorite. If there is one that can do it all, though, he thinks it’s Labrador retrievers.
“Labs are the 4x4 of dogs,” he said. “You can take a Lab out to duck hunt in the morning, go pheasant hunting in the afternoon and go sit in your tent with him laying down next to you at a young age. They have been bred for years to be calm, sit next to you and be quiet.”
