A Revolutionary All-natural Spray is Now Available for Dogs with Rough Paw Pads January 8, 2009

SCOTTSDALE, AZ, January 07, 2009 /24-7PressRelease/ — Natural Paws, LLC (www.naturalpaws.net) introduces the first all-natural paw pad spray, Sweet Pea’s TenderPaws.

Sweet Pea’s TenderPaws has been carefully developed to give dog paw pads the natural elements needed for instant recovery from hot summer pavement, icy winter sidewalks, and chemicals in the soil. The paw pads connecting dogs with their world are transformed from dry and tagged, to soothed and refreshed.

“Living in the extreme heat of Arizona,” recalls Elyse Horvath of Natural Paws, “we noticed early on that (our dog) Sweet Pea’s paw pads were really getting worn. Determined to find a solution, we started looking for a product that was non-toxic, clean to use, and all-natural…there was literally nothing to fill this need. It seemed that the only way to get the qualities we were looking for, was to make it ourselves.”
Most people have had to accept that their dogs’ paws are a lost cause. Now there is a company emerging with a human-grade quality, nutritive remedy for paw pads in need.

Sweet Pea’s TenderPaws is an aromatic blend of high quality, all natural essential oils, antioxidants, vitamins, and omega-3s. It is made in small batches in the USA from the finest botanicals available. All ingredients are organic or wild-harvested. These essentials from nature’s garden make it possible to soothe & restore paw pads, strengthen them for what’s to come, and easily maintain them once they’ve recovered. It is absorbed almost instantly, providing active moisturizing and active restoration, for active paws.

Natural Paws, LLC is a company that is pioneering the canine paw care industry. It is dedicated to helping dogs in different ways; from directly improving their comfort and well-being, to aid through established charity organizations and rescue shelters. Natural Paws’ mission is to provide pet owners with all natural solutions to endure everyday challenges. More information can be found at www.naturalpaws.net.

About Natural Paws

Natural Paws’ mission is to provide dog owners with all natural paw care solutions. For further information, please contact us at (480) 205-9959.

Hunter turns bird-dog training into art form, MN October 23, 2008

Source: Star Tribune, by Dennis Anderson, October 23, 2008

SANDSTONE, Minn. — Art takes many forms, not least those fashioned by hands, as clay is turned by a potter, or oils put to brush and canvas by a painter.

Jerry Kolter is that kind of artist, and more. In his hands are nurtured dogs of a special kind — those that can run like the wind, carrying their heads high, processing one scent from another and dismissing most before detecting the target aroma, that of a ruffed grouse.

At which time these pointing dogs lock up board stiff.

King of the forest. Queen, too. In the entire world there flies no bird more delectable — nor, when undertaken properly, more challenging to find and fell, to bring to hand, than the ruffed grouse.

“Hunting grouse is very different from hunting other birds, such as pheasants,” Kolter was saying the other day, on the eve of Minnesota’s 2008 ruffed grouse season, which opened Saturday. “Grouse take a special kind of dog.”

Kolter, a former software developer, and his wife, Betsy, a horticulturist, are refugees from the Twin Cities and owners of Northwoods Bird Dogs (www.north-woodsbirddogs.com), located near this east-central Minnesota town.

Surrounding the kennel is deer country, bear and wolf, too, but perhaps especially a land hospitable to grouse and woodcock. These last often are found in forests of mixed deciduous trees, aspen particularly, much of it interspersed with meadows and clear cuts, high-bush cranberries, and alder thickets in the lowlands.

In Kolter’s case, the dog-trainer-as-artisan analogy is no stretch. With his tutelage, promising puppies born from reputable parents and grandparents are continually encouraged and occasionally coaxed toward futures that place them among the planet’s best grouse finders.

No easy task, this, considering that a trainer of ruffed grouse dogs must be as knowledgeable about the quarry as he is the dogs in his charge.

Grouse often anticipate approaching hunters and their dogs and seek escape on foot rather than flying. Or they don’t.

Indeed, some ruffed grouse seem almost diabolical in their abilities to confuse pursuing dogs by acting one way on a given day and another way the next.

“A young dog needs to be put on a lot of birds to know how to handle them,” Kolter said. “And not just liberated (planted) birds. But wild birds.”

A master falconer who once hunted with goshawks and other aerial predators before turning his attention full-time to grouse dogs, Kolter grew up in southern Minnesota near Henderson and flew his first red-tailed hawk at age 12.

“When I was a kid, I couldn’t have a dog, so the first thing I did when I went to college was buy a Brittany spaniel puppy,” he said.

That dog years later gave way to an English setter, and soon Kolter cast an eye toward field trials.

Now, some 20 years after he first entered grouse dog competitions, and having won many of them, he still runs 10 or so trials a year, some in Minnesota, some as far away as Pennsylvania.

Add to these travels an annual August training trip to North Dakota to run young dogs on wild sharp-tailed grouse, and another monthlong winter trip to Texas or Oklahoma, and the process of shaping English setters and pointers — some owned by far-flung customers — unfolds in alternating installments of yard training and field work.

“When a puppy is 12 to 16 weeks of age, I put them on birds,” he said. “I start with liberated birds but move fairly quickly to wild birds.”

Much is made of a pointing dog’s “range,” or the distance a dog works from its handler. Owners of flushing dogs such as Labrador retrievers and springer spaniels, for example, want their animals ranging no farther from them than shotgun range, or about 35 yards.

Pointing dogs typically move out more expansively, and Kolter said he is less worried about an animal’s distance from him than whether “he is working with me.”

Training-collar advances give hunting dogs more leash September 25, 2008

As an owner of not only a hunting breed but a dog that has already wandered off chasing birds, only to be found 4 days later… I have seriously reconsidered my opinions about using a training collar….

by Elizabeth Shaw | The Flint Journal

Wednesday September 24, 2008, 8:03 PM

Kinder, gentler collars• Hunters can check out the latest products and learn the basics of e-collar conditioning at a free Tri-Tronics seminar, 5-7 p.m. Friday at Gander Mountain, 5038 Miller Road, Flint Township.• Details: (810) 230-1212.

FLINT TOWNSHIP, Michigan — Ever wonder if an electronic collar could help improve your dog’s hunting performance? Successful collar conditioning starts with training the trainer, said Tri-Tronics field product specialist Jim Trotter, a retired Haslett teacher who’s been training his own retrievers for waterfowl and upland birds since 1971.

“When I first started working with dogs, all there was were shock collars, which a lot of people felt were inhumane — and for good reason,” said Trotter. “Over the years, the technology has evolved so that now we have the ability to turn them down (and) fine-tune the stimulus to suit even the most sensitive dog.”

But seeing is believing, Trotter said.

“They’re now truly training collars, not shock collars anymore. In demonstrations, I actually let customers feel the stimulation and show them the ability they have to control it,” he said.

An electronic collar, or e-collar, delivers an electrical stimulation controlled by a remote device. When used properly, the dog quickly learns it can avoid stimulation by obeying the trainer’s commands.

“It’s allowed us in the dog training world to speed up the training process and allowed us to increase what we’re able teach by a good 30 percent,” said Trotter.

But it isn’t magic, and it isn’t instant. One of the biggest mistakes novices make is using an e-collar on an untrained dog.

“The dog should already know the basic obedience commands of here, heel and sit. Once they’ve got those down, then you can begin to reteach those commands using the collar for reinforcement,” said Trotter. “If you start your dog’s very first teaching sessions with a stimulation, the risk is the dog not understanding and not drawing the right conclusion to what is going on.”

Some dogs can become “collar-wise,” learning to obey only when the e-collar is on. A trainer can avoid that pitfall with a good understanding of how behavioral conditioning works, said Trotter.

“Before doing any stimulation at all, the dog wears the collar every day for a full two weeks. Every time we go out, the collar goes on. They get to associate the collar with something good happening,” said Trotter. “After two weeks, all of a sudden in association with your voice and a base command he understands, he gets his first stimulation. So he associates it with your command, not the collar.”

One of the biggest benefits is the increased range it’s given trainers for reinforcing commands.

Until the early 1970s, a typical long blind in a field trial might have been 100 or 120 yards. Today’s dogs are running open blinds at three times that distance.

“It’s like an extended leash. It has totally changed the retriever aspect of things, what we’re able to do with dogs today and how we’re able to get dogs to respond 300, 400 yards away from us,” said Trotter. “I can put a dog out on a water blind and he will respond flawlessly at 350 yards and handle right to a tee. The dogs of 30 years ago couldn’t do the tests the dogs of today are put through, and it’s because of this kind of advanced technology.”

It’s improved real-life hunting situations too.

“Guys don’t have to walk nearly as far to pick up their birds. Now they can send the dog because the dog is under full control even hundreds of yards out,” he said.

Ultimately, the dog’s safety might be the best payoff of all.

“He may be running deer or chasing birds halfway across the field. Or maybe he’s running straight for the road. That’s when you just want to know you have total control, to stop him when he’s doing something wrong.”