I love reading post like these. There are so many assumptions on rock vs ribbon dogs, I have trained my own dog with the help of Raymond and I also have a dog with a field trial trainer. People assume that since they have a dog that they trained themselves and are good at the one situation that they hunt that they are better than other peoples "ribbon" dogs. When it comes to sending dogs to a trainer like KB said just because you can buy a corvette does not mean you can drive one. I have seen dogs leave trainers that can really run that the owners will not be able to handle there way out of a wet paper sack. I have also seen people like Kenner 18 that spent money at a so called trainer to pick the dog up and come to the realization that the dog spent 4-8 months in a kennel and did not see the first live bird or have a gun fired over his head. In most hunting situations the dog with the most experience wins regardless of training methods and if you put it in the same situation it will develop the patterns if it is a smart dog. I moved here from north LA and I know my dog had to get used to marsh hunting with the majority of his experience being in rice fields and flooded timber. With that being said with owning what I consider a well trained dog, a rock dog may win the one situation that they are good at (ie marsh, ricefield, timber, dry field) however if you put a well trained dog with somebody that can handle the dog, that dog will win the war (all hunting types).
This is not a insult at anybody's dog, that's why I did quote anybody. I feel that some people think that they need to downplay trained dogs due to lack of knowledge. Bubba Watson won the masters and never had a golf lesson however there are more people that play pro golf that have taken lessons.
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