Weston’s Foundation Training Program for Gun Dogs is about building a finished bird dog.

Foundation Training...  the love of birds, confidence with gunfire and the hunting environment both on land and water are the essentials we build into your pup. Without these, you have no hunting dog. Weston’s Hunting Retriever Foundation Training is designed to bring out the natural predator instincts in your pup and create in him a strong desire for birds, to hunt them and learn that gunfire means birds.

The techniques of this program will advance your young retriever as both a waterfowl and an upland dog. 


There is no substitute for allowing the pup to flush and chase birds, creating a strong desire to hunt and locate birds, as well as building confidence in the field.   

Once the pups are confident with birds, we can advance the pups Upland skills by using quail, chukar and pheasants.  It's all about finding and putting up birds in all types of cover. Gun breaking is easily accomplished once we have a "birdy" pup that chases flushed game......


Weston’s Foundation Training Programs teach the pups where to hunt for birds. Learn by "association" or "imprinting" and by allowing young pups to find birds in true hunting cover, the pups imprint where to hunt for birds.  With the different settings of our training facilities and over 17,000 acres of food plots and bird cover, the pups quickly learn to aggressively search birdy areas and are rewarded by finding, flushing and chasing birds out of the heavy cover.

Below, a 10 month old, “Honoring" naturally, the point of a 7 month old GSP. Young dogs learn through what is called, "imprinting".  The older pup has "imprinted" by association that the sight of another dog on point, means "BIRDS".


Pointing Dog Foundation Training
• BUILDING CONFIDENCE IN THE FIELD
• DEVELOPING POINTING ABILITY
• INTRODUCTION TO BIRDS
• RETRIEVING
• INTRODUCTION TO GUNFIRE

Foundation Training.... is the most important part of bird dog training. A bird dog must have an interest and desire for birds, be acclimated to gunfire and be confident in their hunting environment. These are the essentials all other training is built upon and must be properly introduced to ensure a bold confident gundog.

Our building blocks approach of Foundation Training, begins very early and brings out the pups natural predator instincts. By allowing the pup to point and chase birds they cannot catch, we create staunchness on point, a strong desire to hunt for and locate birds and build confidence in the field.