agraham20
Active member
Gatzby commented earlier up about Dokken being a marketing guy and he is correct. He was a trainer but all his dogs are now trained by employees. I know of at least 2 kennels where the owners were head trainers at dokkens place before starting their own kennel.Story time,
Two years ago at game fair (a large outdoor hunting "show" concerning all things duck and upland hunting in Anoka, MN) Tom Dokken was giving a seminar that me and some buddies attended. He had given his young black lab the sit command on a place board and was talking to the audience with the dog behind him. A short time passed and he turned around and the dog was gone. Tom asked, "where'd he go?" to all of us. We really thought it was a joke or all part of the act. Then as he kept looking around it dawned on me that he really lost his dog
. He called out for him and then proceeded to shock him a few times, when we all heard a loud yelp 80 yards away in some cattails near the pond.
Once I got invited to a hunt, err uhh, "preserve shoot" by a rich guy(through marriage). His lab trained at Oak Ridge never flushed or retrieved a bird(now I don't blame her, she was a sweet dog). He never hit anything, and he got his jacked up truck stuck at field entrance on a game farm.
I don't know Tom and I'm sure he's done a lot of good things for our sport and knows more about dogs than I do. I just wanted to share a few tales after seeing this thread.
I have seen some real nice trained dogs come out of Oak ridge, and I’ve seen some of the opposite. Unfortunately most of it comes into the dog and genetics. These trainers for the most part are doing bird and gun and basic gun dog work. At that level the dogs genetics and breeding are more important than the trainers abilities in my opinion. They can only work with what your bring them.