MSDA’s upland flushing dog program is hosting a one-day workshop on Friday, June 21 at Mount Ararat Farm in Port Deposit, MD. This seminar will be held entirely outdoors and will focus on Retrieving for Upland Dogs. This will be a full-day workshop (8:30 am – 5:00 pm) with limited enrollment to ensure that all participants get plenty of attention. The day will be led by Mitch White, a well-known professional retrieving trainer who also works with upland dogs.
Much more information and online preregistration is available at https://mdsportingdog.org/2024-retr-seminar/. Preregistration will be open until 5 pm on Tuesday, May 21.
We need your feedback! Please read the description below and then take a minute for a survey at (Update – this survey has closed.) Your thoughts will determine whether or not we go ahead with this.
MSDA’s upland flushing dog program is considering a one-day workshop in June focused on Retrieving for Upland Dogs – this outdoor seminar will be aimed more at spaniel breeds than retriever breeds, although retriever working teams would be welcome. We have observed that many non-retriever flushing dogs have problems with their retrieves on land and water, whether the retrieves are marked or blind. The workshop will be primarily for beginners, and also for handlers who need troubleshooting with their dogs. Depending on the handlers and dogs in attendance, the session would focus on the beginning retrieving elements and issues faced, including with water retrieves, hunt dead and water blinds – balking at the water’s edge or a change in cover, whistle sits and recalls, basic commands & hand signals, verbal vs non-verbal handles, holding the bird, retrieving to hand and giving up the bird, de-cheating and the like.
IF we hold the seminar this year, it would be on Friday, June 21 at Mount Ararat Farm in Port Deposit, MD. This would be a full-day workshop with limited enrollment to ensure that all participants get plenty of attention. The day will be led by Mitch White, a well-known professional retrieving trainer who also works with upland dogs.
Mitch has been training dogs for retrieving work field since 1988 and his program has been developed to use an approach that works with all sporting breeds. One of the main ingredients is fairness to the dog. Mitch believes in putting the work into teaching the dog to create a skill set to aid the dog in making decisions. Poor decisions are corrected and good decisions are praised. Since Mitch trains many different breeds, he often has to get “outside of the box” from popular retriever training methods. Mitch also gets a lot of dogs in for “rehab” work. These are dogs that have been in other programs and have developed issues that have prevented them from going further in training. Mitch has had tremendous success turning these dogs around so they become confident workers again.
MSDA would like to gauge the level of interest in this seminar before going too far down the road planning this event, so we are asking for your opinion. Please take a minute to complete a brief survey at (Update – this survey has closed.)
If we don’t hear sufficient interest in this potential seminar, we will not pursue it further, at least not this spring.
The next Flushing Dog Training Day will be Saturday, April 13 at Mt. Ararat Farms in Port Deposit MD. There will be two different training groups (Skill Building and Advanced Work), and preregistration will be open from Wednesday, March 27 at 8 am until Saturday, March 30 at 5 pm. Much more information, including the online preregistration form, is available at https://mdsportingdog.org/next-fdtd/.
The next Flushing Dog Training Day will be Saturday, March 23 at Mt. Ararat Farms in Port Deposit MD. There will be two different training groups (Skill Building and Advanced Work), and preregistration will be open for several days starting Friday, March 8th. Much more information is available at https://mdsportingdog.org/next-fdtd/.
The next Flushing Dog Program training day will be Friday February 24, 2024 at Mt. Ararat Farm in Port Deposit MD. There will be two different training groups, Skill Building and Advanced Work, and preregistration will be open from 8:00 am on Tuesday, February 6 until 5:00 pm on Friday, February 9. Preregistration will be online only at https://mdsportingdog.org/next-fdtd/.
We are incredibly happy that our Training Days for Flushing Dogs have become very popular. However, the sessions filled up so quickly that we are looking at ways to accommodate more dogs and to address the wide range of upland skills needed against the experience of our handlers and dogs. For starters, we will be running two distinctly different “groups”: the Skill Building group will assist handlers and their dogs to develop and refine the skills needed to run spaniel hunt tests at Junior and beginning Senior levels and/or to develop a well-trained flushing/hunting dog. A second group, the Advanced Work group, will be strictly practice for master-level experienced handlers. We are also developing a Field Obedience class for newbies and novices, possibly starting in May. More information on that should be available soon.
Registration for MSDA members opened on Wednesday, December 7 and the Training Day filled up quickly. We regret that we are not able to accommodate any additional dogs and registration for December 15 Training Day for Flushing Dogs has been closed. If you have questions about Training Days for Flushing Dogs, please contact the committee chair, Steve Surprenant, via Surprenant@mdsportingdog.org.
The next Training Day of 2023 is planned for Friday, December 15 beginning at 8:30 am. It will be held at Mount Ararat Farm in Port Deposit, Maryland. There will be work on Land (quartering, finding, flushing and retrieving) with live birds and Hunt Dead; there will not be any structured water work.
Here is the schedule for online registration:
Thursday, December 7 at 8:00 am ET – Registration opens for MSDA members.
Saturday, December 9 at 8:00 am ET – Registration opens to all.
Sunday, December 10 at 5:00 pm ET – Registration closes. If the Training Day fills up, registration may close earlier.
Registrations and payments for all Training Days will be online only and will be accepted in the order in which they are received, subject to the dates and priorities listed above. No email or phone entries will be accepted. As in the past, registration will be limited to 18-20 dogs.
Registration for the September 9th Training Day for Flushing Dogs opened to MSDA members Monday August 28 and was full within a few minutes. There is also a waitlist of several dogs. We regret that we are not able to accommodate any additional dogs and registration for this training day has been closed.
