# Gun Dog: The Upland Retriever DVD featuring Tom Dokken



## acolic (Apr 2, 2012)

Hi,

a quick review of this video which I purchased yesterday.

The video covers off in about 5 minute snippets:

Basic Obedience
Transition to Remote
Tools to Support Field Training
Introduction to Scenting
180 Drill
Hunt/Dead Drill
Transition to Cover
Tracking
Introduction to Live Game
First Shot
No Bird Drill
Honoring Drill
The Hunt
Hydration
First Aid Tools
Inspecting for Injuries
Wrap Up


I found the video underwhelming. 

At this point of a retriever's training cycle the first few items should have already been covered off in their training and I found their inclusion in the video superfluous.

The next few items on tracking and training the retriever to use their nose to find birds was pretty high level. 

The last few items on hydration, first aid and inspecting for injuries while important I thought were filler for the video.

I would estimate that of the video's hour length about 30 minutes are spent on uplands training.

A key topic which was NOT covered was how to train the retriever to quarter. Tom covers off the command 'place' using raised tire platforms and alludes to the use of the 'place' command later on to train quartering but never shows that.

If you are looking for a very high level overview of training your retriever for upland hunting the video fits the purpose. 

If you are looking for a video on how to train your retriever for upland hunting I found the video wanting.

Just my two cents,

Alex


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## mstaple3 (Aug 26, 2015)

I've been wanting to get this DVD, I really like Tom Dokken's DVD's. How'd he cover quartering and honoring? I've seen lots of ways people train it but nothing so far that I've liked too much.


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## Ken McLoud (Jun 26, 2016)

I've been looking for something like this too, do you have any other DVD's or maybe online videos that you'd reccomend?


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## acolic (Apr 2, 2012)

Hi,

one issue I have with the DVD is that he does not cover quartering or honouring.

He does teach the place command where the dog learns to sit on a platform raised on a tire and he does mention that this will come in handy when teaching quartering but he doesn't get to it. I think the plan is to have two platforms spread out and by using the 'place' command move the dog from one to the other so they get accustomed to the windshield wiper movement. And then transition this to the field. It would have been nice to see that in the video.

I have a lot of other videos but I haven't seen anything that in my opinion is complete. I have a couple of Fowl Dog videos I thought were ok, part of the retriever fever series, George Hickox's Upland Hunting DVD and most of Evan Graham's series. From a basic retriever perspective I liked Evan's DVD's. I have yet to find an Upland training DVD I liked.


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