ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 10, 1995 TAG: 9512290104
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C11 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Outdoors
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
Several years ago, I drove to South Carolina and picked up a Boykin spaniel - a small, chocolate-colored dog with a docked tail and luminous yellow eyes.
This dog was just beginning to receive recognition beyond Kershaw County, S.C., where a family named Boykin had carried out a breeding program for 70 years.
Word was spreading that the Boykin was a do-it-all hunter - a retriever of ducks and doves, a flusher of turkeys and grouse, yet small and congenial enough to sleep at the foot of your bed.
This would be my family's first retriever. We had owned pointing dogs - Brittany spaniels.
So I purchased a training book, titled ``Water Dog,'' by Richard A. Wolters. I had used a previous book by Wolters, ``Gun Dog,'' published in 1961, to train pointing dogs. Wolters wrote a bevy of dog books, selling 700,000 copies, the latest published in 1985 and titled ``Game Dog''.
He had some revolutionary ideas about the rapid training of hunting dogs. You started them early and you made them your friend. The dog's mental development was just as important as its physical development, maybe more so.
The old school was to indifferently lock a pup in a kennel and wait until it was a year old before starting the training. By then, Wolters had his dogs pointing and retrieving.
Wolters' work was dedicated to a new breed of hunters, who often lived in urban areas - sometimes apartment complexes - where the nearest game likely would be poker. For such hunters, having a dog that was gentle with children was as important as having one that was aggressive on game. Wolters believed you could accomplish both, if you used a little common sense and were wiling to stick to the job.
``If you're just going to fool around, do it at a bar,'' he would say.
Wolters held disdain for people who tried to make show dogs out of hunting dogs. He founded the North American Hunting Retrievers Association to track and certify the ancestry of registered dogs, so when a sportsman bought a Lab or other retriever he knew it came with hunting instincts.
I had a chance to tell Wolters how well our Boykin turned out under his training advice when he moved from New York to Virginia and began attending meetings of the Virginia Outdoor Writers Association. By then, Wolters was a spitting image of Mark Twain in looks and wit, a man who wrote for ``Connoisseur,'' gladly mingling with guys who were happy to see their byline in ``Fur, Fish and Game.''
He always lived on the edge, which helps explain his death in 1993 at age 72 while piloting an ultralight plane near his home in Henrico County.
His dog-training methods have been preserved in his books, but his widow, Olive, and friend, Joseph Middleton, have taken their presentation a step further. They have made videos of ``Game Dog'' and ``Gun Dog,''
The ``Gun Dog'' video, in part, was shot at one of the old plantations along the James River. Wolters' friends believe he would be proud of it. Even during the pre-video days, Wolters understood the importance of graphics. More than 2,500 pictures were taken during the preparation of his book ``Gun Dog''.
The ``Game Dog'' video field work is by Charlie Jurney, a Wolters protege who owns Beaverdam Kennels in Terrell, N.C. It highlights Wolters' techniques used in training retrievers. ``Gun Dog'' is devoted to pointing dogs.
``We will be making `Water Dog,' Richard's most famous book, into a top-quality video after Christmas,'' Middleton said.
The ``Gun Dog'' and ``Game Dog'' videos are available at Orvis or can be ordered for $39.95 each, plus $4.65 shipping, from Mid-Carolina Media, Inc., 800-310-4418.
They make a worthy Christmas gift for anyone interested in training a pointer or retriever at a time when decent gun dogs have become so rare it can be tough even to find anyone who can talk about the subject.
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