Mark Payton has been bird hunting for nearly 20 years, and he quickly realized that he wanted a "complete" bird dog........one that would point, back, AND RETRIEVE! Having force fetched several of his own dogs and dogs for many of his friends, Mark realized that no video to date adequately showed what was truly involved. Videos with dogs that have already been thru the process do not convey to the viewer the dog’s initial reactions to the various stages of the force fetch process. And some critical information (like transitioning to the ground) was either inadequately emphasized or not emphasized at all!
This was the impetus behind Mark's first project, his DVD entitled Reliable Retrieving. To resolve this, he taped every force fetch session of one dog from start to finish! He kept the critical, initial reactions to each new phase, and only the redundant sessions (i.e., reinforcing a command already introduced) were not included. So, for the first time the viewer gets to sit in on the actual training sessions as they occur!
After the success of his DVD, he then wrote a book that covered all of the basic skills for any pointing dog. After working with dozens of dogs, Mark will admit that mistakes were made with some of his first dogs. After trying several different techniques, he wanted the new dog trainer to avoid some of his initial mistakes, so the book included only his favorite ways to work dogs; hence the title: Favorite Ways To Train Your Bird Dog.
Recently, he has finished his latest project, a DVD that covers how to whoa break your dog. Although most bird hunters recognize that "whoa" is the most important command for a bird dog, so few dogs truly whoa like they should. Borrowing from his retrieving DVD, the Whoa, Dog. Whoa! video follows a dog (actually, two dogs) from start to finish. The viewer gets to see the dogs progress from not whoaing to whoaing quickly, stylishly, and with the handler giving the command in a normal tone. This video reinforces a concept from the book, and that is dogs must be trained step-by-step with consistency, repetition, and praise.
