PRL Docuseries Sample video
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Become a member of PRL Vimeo On Demand!
PRL is incredibly excited to announce a new project that is finally getting off the ground after many years of just not making the time in our busy dog breeding and training career. Every year my puppy clients ask for resources and my guidance and I’ve been saying for years I was going to get this started so here we go!
PRL has a new Vimeo On Demand page. You can join this video information center for all things bird dogs by joining the annual subscription on the Paint River Llewellins Vimeo page at the link provided here and at the bottom of this post.
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/paintriverllewellins
This video library is very new and limited at this time but is and will be a valuable resource for everyone raising their Llewellin puppy and other upland breeds. These are home videos made by me and those close to me. Do not expect blockbuster cinematography. These videos are very basic to more in-depth and are only going to growing exponentially throughout this year.
I have been training dogs for 26 years of that time, professionally for 22 years. Having worked with over 4400 dogs and 3200 dog owners encompassing— basic obedience, disabled persons service dogs, SAR/LE dogs; including tracking/trailing/wilderness area search in both live find & cadaver, other detector dogs, rehabilitating aggressive dogs, waterfowl search work, and of course!— upland dogs both pointing and flushing breeds.
As a young boy this passion was sparked by seeing the natural ability displayed when hunting with our herman shorthaired pointer. 28 years later… seeing, training and hunting with these upland dogs still makes me feel like that happy kid.
This video series will be on going adding content throughout the months and years. We will have live Vimeo chats, many sit down discussion topics and of course as jspring and summer weather roll around, lots of in the field training footage. PRL always has a few pups held onto for assessment each breeding season and members will get to be a part of this experience. Many ways to train dogs… we are not looking at reinventing the wheel here. However, as a trainer one thing people as handlers always do is over complicate training. Understanding what and how a pup processes its experiences can largely determine the outcome with your bird dog. Let this membership page be a honest, competent, down to earth, common sense approach to developing your own bird dog from a nationally trusted source in breeding and training in me, Kyle Warren. Companion dogs, Search dogs and hunting dogs have been my passion and career my entire life and I look forward to sharing and growing this new chapter of my life with you.
While I have come to specialize in breeding and developing Llewellin setters for hunting ruffed grouse as my life’s obsession. The teachings within these videos are able apply to the majority of bird dogs. Genetics, bird exposure, setting up a quality learning environment and reading your dog are all valued components to success. I look forward to helping in as many of these areas as I can.
Please visit our Vimeo In Demand page at this link: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/paintriverllewellins
Thank you.
Kyle
Kyle’s slice of heaven here today!
Today was the perfect Kyle-day!! I woke up at 4:30am, crated up the pigeons, took them out for a 50 mile training toss as the sun came up at the top of the mountain in Walton, NY. Drove home 67 road miles from there. The birds were book’n 50 miles in 49 minutes!! Over 60 mph! Next weekend is there first race— they are ready!!
Shortly after getting home and tending to the birds I had my first training lesson of the day (Sundays I train at home all day). First lesson 9am. A really nice black lab that’s here from obedience, upland and waterfowl work. I had a lesson every hour on the hour for 6 hours straight. I cancelled my last two of the day because I was itching to get all four llews out for some bird work today in the afternoon. Sunny, 50 degrees with a gentle breezy. Perfect!! So cruising thru the day with a smile we went from the 14 month old black lab to a 3 year old sheba inu with dog aggression issues to a 8 month old lab/newfoundland mix puppy in for general ed with some family fun with mom, dad and daughters in tow, to a one year old hard core working line german shepherd with a head thick as a brick wall that a dad and his teenage son are working their butts off with, to a 15 month old little soft-coated wheaton terrier with dog aggression issues to lastly, two labs 4 months old and 9 months old with the whole family— ma, pa and the two kids. Great people, great dogs today!
Finished the work day up at 3pm and start the play day at 3:30pm :)I gave the race team and other pigeons their afternoon feedings, handled my 25 young birds in the young bird loft and gave them all vitamin pills. I took one launcher and one bird and set up a training field for all the llews to run one at a time. Widget, Pixel, Duncan and Piper— in that order.
I set up Widget’s bird in the field tucked up in the brush nestled in with some small pines. For those of you who know me you know I always put several distraction areas, where I kick the ground up a bit with my foot and then pick up some vegetation and rub it with my hands to make sure that the dogs are not going to point my odor alone. It sometimes takes all of 5 seconds for a smart bird dog to put together scent association with handler and planted birds. So make the dog think hard about these things you’ll see it play out favorably. This was the longest that I had a bird sitting out for Widget and Pixel. From the time I planted the bird for Widget to the time we hit the back field it was about 30 minutes. After planting Widget’s bird I went back to the house and brought Widget out in the yard for about 10 minutes to hang out. Of course, she knew it was time to work but we pal’d around for awhile then I did about a 5 plus minute obedience workout with her covering sit, stay, whoa, base (my come/heel command) with and w/o the whistle and of course take-a-break :)Widget did great. We then proceeded out to the training grounds. Widget hunted like a demon…. just beautiful. At just over 6 months of age I truly could not be happy with both Widget and Pixel. Their natural ability is tremendous and with the several communication controls I have instituted outside of bird work they are working terrific. Widget located the bird quickly in about 6 minutes of work and had a slam’n point!! I mean really slam’n!! What was great to see was that she stopped on a dime without me saying whoa at all and was flagging her tail a little bit staring straight ahead in the direction of the bird. I was about 30 feet in front of her. When she stopped with her high set tail stiffly waving I praised her calmly. When I took a single step in her direction her tail stiffened. I love it!! This dog is learning her job just fine. Today was all business with Widget and Pixel and nothing but fun at the same time. The way it ought to be!! I beat around the area with my feet and looked for the bird for about 30-60 seconds then launched the bird. All fun!! Today was also the first day of any bell exposure. She looked at me as we were heeling thru that yard to the field, as if to say, “what the heck is this thing?!” ….. it took about all of 1 minute for her to adjust to wearing the bell. Only a matter of another time or two before they are ampped up at the sound or sight of the bell. Pixel’s outing today was nearly a carbon copy of Widget’s! Pixel was working for around 10 minutes prior to locating the bird. Her style is very different than Widget’s on point. Pix has that low setter crouch and interestingly as I approached from the side/rear she raised up to the most vertically erect point she’s done to date?! Pretty cool!! Love these dogs!! For both of them these are multiple shots of the same point.
Click on photos to enter slideshow.
Pixel and Widget 6 month old birthday!
Over the past 6 weeks or so I have been doing just some basics with the girls as seen in the last post on video. I work them for very short periods of time a couple times a week. Today is there 6 month birthday and they have been going nuts around the pigeon coops the past few weeks so I figured between their increased bird instinct development and the little bit of command education they’ve received in the past month and a half that today was a good day to go for a hunt!! The weather here is sunny and 55 degrees today! I’d take this weather year round!!
I took two birds for Widget and went out to the back brush fields to plant the launchers and the birds. I covered them very well with vegetation. If I plant birds, then I always make sure to do a few decoy locations with just earth disturbance and me rubbing some vegetation with my hands. This just gives me an idea of how fixated the dogs are on my odor versus the bird odor. It’s actually quite fun to watch them think they are on to something then say to themselves, “nope! just dad!”
They both did very well today. Both had wonderful scent points (as opposed to sight points) from decent distances considering very little wind and very short time for the birds to be setting out there. These kids were born for this occupation and I just love watching them do their thing. I have benefited much from the obedience training (would have always liked to do a little more…) with their responsiveness in the field. Don’t get me wrong they have a very long way to go to being primo but no doubt that’s their destination.
Here are some photos of them working today. Click on them to enter the slide show. Enjoy!
Widget and Pixel basic whoa, recall, heel training
I have been working with Pixel and Widget for the past two weeks with basic whoa, recall and heel work. The each have had six— five minute lessons on this material. This is what I love about llewellins. They almost always handle easy, learn quickly and allow me to be a fun loving guy 99% of the time. I wish I could say that about all breeds and yield these results in just 30 minutes total spread out over two weeks. The day of this video was taken when they were 5.5 months old. Can’t wait to get back to bird training in another 4-8 weeks with some command control in place. It should be a blast!! I like to expose my pups to birds around 4 months old several times to give them a taste and to together them into it. During this introduction I usually use pigeons in launchers and just go out with no rules a few times to see what happens and have a bit of bird fun. After that somewheres around five months of age I’ll start doing some basic commands such as whoa, recall and heel work. Then we consistently do bird work starting around 8 months old give or take. By that time my command control has had nothing to do with birds or restraint so I find the bird training process much easier and more pleasant, especially with this marvelous breed.
Pixel’s 4th hunt in the past 7 days
Pixel is continually impressing me. She is a very sweet sensitive girl with a cautious nature (very different from her sister the Widgetnator!! Widget is more of a shoot first ask questions later kinda girl.) I have always believed that good grouse dogs are cautious and vigilant. This dog will be a grouse super star if she keeps this up!! If she slows up and points immediately upon finding scent on planted pigeons in launchers tucked in the grass and bushes on her 4th hunt then I think shes heading in the right direction. Widget is doing super but needs a little more time to believe that she’s not smart than the bird, or the guy holding the remote 😉
Click on photos to view slideshow gallery
Widget 4 months old on point
Both Widget and Pixel started their bird work yesterday on their 4 month old birthday. I had them out each three times in 24 hours for fifteen minutes each time. The first time they each had a pigeon in a launcher. It was too windy, crusty snow and a bit difficult… not the best conditions to say the least for 4 month old pups out to have a good time. Both girls were great in the woods and fields. I always work pups one on one until they are at a minimum able to do the job on their own very well, so they had their own one on one time with papa. Widget worked great cruising around the woods confident and working nicely. She caught scent of the bird on the rim of the field from a good 30 yards or more away due to the stiff west wind. As a result she got awful close to the bird by the time she started to go into a point and the bird was released from the launcher. It was an okay experience but I wasn’t happy with my set up given the weather. Pixel worked equally as well and her more cautious approach once in scent resulted in a better quality point at a nicer distance. Later on that afternoon I set up two pigeons in launchers for each one and worked them separately as planned. Both did much better!! Wind was near calm, no snow on ground where we worked this time and better cover for birds. When I brought them out in the field they new what was going on! Today I brought them out after work and gave them each two pigeons different locations in the 7 acre field and they were really pumped was we walked on lead out to the training area. They both worked beautifully and were checking yesterday’s hot spots (I love that when they are using their brains and remember like that, especially so young!) Due to walking in different locations in the field and planting birds in different locations it was quite easy to increase their range. They both had nice points today!! Pixel’s cautiousness is proving to be very desirable on birds thus far. My hyper-smart Widget needs to learn a few more times that those birds will burn her if she tries to sneak up on them!! So amazing and so fun to see what just three times out with fifteen minutes of nose time each time has produced. Stay tuned I’ll get some photos as the girls get further along. Being on top of their bird work is more important than photos so I only snap when the opportunity knocks right now. Everything is timing so the camera is not the priority at the moment. I don’t force anything with young dogs (older ones either for that matter) so right now it’s just me learning them and seeing what they will offer me as we move forward. I let them show me what they need instead of plugging them into a cookie cutter routine. With good dogs less is always more. Well that’s all for now!! Keep in touch!!
Techy girls strutting their stuff at 11 weeks old!
These girls continue to put a giant smile on my face with their impressive instincts just shining thru!! What a fun 10 minutes of wing time in the yard.