Author: Charles T. Jurney & Richard A. Wolters
Publisher: MID-CAROLINA MEDIA INC., Jan 2003
Binding: DVD
ISBN: 0-MCM-00085-0
Synopsis
Shows you step-by-step, the simple techniques used successfully by 1000S of hunters to train their retrievers. DVD, 60 min.
More Information
For both upland and waterfowl hunters. This video follows Richard A. Wolters' original book for retrievers and brings it up to date. Follow in simple steps as we transform a seven week old pup into a first class hunting retriever in a few short weeks!
"Game Dog" shows you how to choose the right puppy, how to guide it through its five critical periods to lock in the basic commands; sit, stay, heel, come, down and no. Then, with Richard's revolutionary techniques, it illustrates how to have a great hunting retriever, quartering a field and handling in water. From triple marks to blind retrieves, watch your dog become a hunting machine! Taking only a few minutes each day have the well trained retriever you've always wanted and get a wonderful companion in the process.
Everyone loves a well behaved dog. Follow the steps in this video and you'll have a dog who will follow hand and whistle signals, deliver birds to hand, be steady to gun fire, go in water happily, and many more feats.
Why pay a professional trainer when, for a fraction of the cost, you can train your own dog? Let us show you a system that has worked for millions of hunters and dog lovers for over three decades. This video is a teaching guide that will last a lifetime. Running time is 61 minutes.
REVIEWS
"'Game Dog' shows the average dog owner how to end up with a really good, dependable working retriever. It's the best video for the hunter who wants a reliable working dog...and the pleasure of training it for himself". --Field and Stream
"A good video is still considerably cheaper
than a dog psychiatrist". --Sports Afield
PRAISE FOR GAME DOG
Richard Wolters' training books have sold in the hundreds of thousands because they work as promised-quicker and easier than anything else. This is the video that shows the "average" dog owner how to end up with a really good, dependable working retriever. I'm "average," and have used the Wolters method and have had a few fine dogs as a result.
This film shows you how in simple lessons, and it also covers those common problems that come up and how to deal with them. It's the best video I've seen for the hunter who wants a reliable working dog...and the pleasure of training it for himself." --Gene Hill, Field & Stream Magazine
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard A. Wolters, more than anyone else, is the man who preserved the traditions of dog training. And, in his unique way, he raised the sport of upland and waterfowl hunting to new levels of popularity. In times when we are rapidly losing our heritage and traditions, Richard A. Wolters has helped us to keep one of our long time treasures, having the well mannered Family and Sporting Dog in our homes and for our favorite activities and pastimes.
In doing this, Richard touched a lot of people through their mutual passion; their dogs. He accomplished this by studying animal behaviorists by working with his own dogs. After many refinements, he felt satisfied with his techniques for training retrievers for the average hunter. At that time, over thirty years ago, Richard wrote the revolutionary book, Water Dog. This book has become the "bible" of the average hunter, which shows him how to quickly turn his dog into a skilled retriever. And, Water Dog is still the standard from which retrievers are trained.
Richard wrote many other books based on the same, proven training methods. He also demonstrated his techniques over the years in this country and throughout Europe. He became a symbol representing the serious, dedicated dog trainer. Manufacturers of sporting products courted him to promote their wares, names such as Orvis, Iams, Beretta, Trebark and Barbour, to name a few. Richard would spend hours talking to a dog owner who had read his books but was having trouble mastering one training area. He loved the whole sport and was loved back.
To further preserve the hunting retriever, Richard Wolters founded the North American Hunting Retriever Association, NAHRA, This is a national organization that tracks and certifies the ancestry of its registered dogs. Now, the hunter knows when he is buying a puppy that has built in hunting instincts. NAHRA is a very active and expanding organization to this day. Thanks to Richard, it helps us preserve our past and keep it with us.
For the family dog, Richard banished the old wives? tale that you could not train a dog until he is one year old and that you should leave your dog to live in a doghouse in the back yard. The 1963 classic book, "Family Dog", was a turning point that made the dog a well-behaved member of the household.
In 1961, Richard wrote his first training book, Gun Dog for pointing dogs and it continues to sell more copies every year. Mr. Wolters wrote his last training book in 1985 entitled Game Dog. It is for both upland and water fowl hunting. Game Dog, like his other books, has become a classic. Since then, Richard lived a full life promoting his passion, the well trained dog and his/her place in our society and in our homes and lives. In October 1993, Richard unfortunately had heart failure and passed on, leaving many of his friends in grief and also in anger because he left us so early.
However, to perpetuate his spirit and his teachings and continue to preserve our traditions, Olive Wolters, his widow, and Joseph Middleton, his longtime friend, have made the video versions of Game Dog, Gun Dog, Water Dog and Family Dog. These one-hour, top quality videos are step by step guides to rapidly transform a seven-week-old puppy into a well-trained and loving animal.
Richard Wolters? books have sold over one million copies over the past thirty-seven years and have helped millions of dog lovers train their dogs. His books continue to sell more every year. They are passed down through generations of family and friends. His legacy lives on through his classic books and now through his easy-to-follow videos.
We owe Richard Wolters a great debt of gratitude because he has not only attained the very rare achievement of continuing his dreams after his death but he has allowed us to preserve our valued traditions and heritage and carry them into our future.
ABOUT THE PRODUCERS
The death of friend and client unexpectedly gave birth to Joseph Middleton's new career.
Today, Middleton is carrying on the legacy of the late Richard A. Wolters, the author of a series of best-selling books on how to train dogs. The Washington Post had hailed him as "the guru of American trainers." His books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies since the first, "Gun Dog," was published in 1961.
Middleton has translated Wolters' dog-training techniques into a new medium: video. The company he and his wife Leslie formed with Wolters' widow, Olive Wolters, released the first of its instructional videos in December 1994 and rang up more than $200,000 in sales last year. Middleton, a financial consultant, became a video mogul after being name co-executor of Wolters' estate. That was in the fall of 1993, when Wolters died of a heart attack - at the age of 72 - while flying solo in an ultralight aircraft.
Middleton, who had developed a father-son relationship with Wolters after managing his investments for years, discovered that Wolters had never sold the video rights to books such as "Water Dog," "Gun Dog," "Game Dog," and "Family Dog." That got the undivided attention of the 50-year-old Middleton, who had enjoyed success with a six-year career in the film industry before he switched gears and began a career on Wall Street.
He edited, wrote and/or produced a handful of films in his film days, including writing the story for "Just Before Dawn," a 1981 flick starring George Kennedy.
That experience was disillusioning. "They basically ... watered down the villain and destroyed the story, I thought," Middleton said.
So, in 1981, Middleton, a Georgia native with a business degree from Georgia Tech, signed on at Merrill Lynch in New York, where he was trained as a financial consultant managing assets for clients. Within six years, Middleton was managing more than $50 million in assets.
"It didn?t have the passion of the movie business, but it had the stability," Middleton said. "And I saw the rewards of helping people out, which I didn?t get in the movie business."
In the back of his mind, he toyed with the idea of getting back into the movie business, but never got around to it instead, in 1990, when he and his wife, Leslie, grew weary of New York, he joined PaineWebber in Raleigh.
One of the clients whose portfolio he took with him from the Big Apple to North Carolina was Wolters. "He sort of adopted me," Middleton said. "We became friends."
Still, Middleton didn?t know Wolters had named him co-executor of his estate until after Wolters died.
"It was very flattering that he trusted me that much," Middleton said. "Usually, that goes strictly to family members."
When Middleton discovered that the estate owned the video rights to all of Wolters? books, he persuaded Wolters? widow to join him in forming Mid-Carolina Media Inc. Middleton is president, Olive Wolters is vice president and Leslie Middleton is secretary/treasury. On a day-to-day basis, Leslie Middleton "basically runs the company," said Middleton, who has remained a financial consultant and moonlights at Mid-Carolina Media.
Olive Wolters said that when Middleton approached her about forming the company, she concluded that, "yes, I think my husband would like this. It would spread the message that he tried to say with his books."
As far as the project?s money making potential, Olive Wolters "looked at it as a possibility, not a sure thing.... But if Joseph was interested in going into business, that was fine."
Middleton and Olive Wolters each invested $25,000 to produce the first video, "Game Dog."
"Believe it or not" $50,000 is the amount usually spent on a video like this," Middleton said. "My creative juices started flowing and I wanted to do it the right way."
Drawing on his film background, Middleton ? who is a dog lover but isn?t a hunter ? commissioned a screenplay and hired a production crew to tape the video on the St. James Plantation outside Richmond in October 1994. Middleton produced and marketed it over the next six months.
One problem Middleton faced was not being able to feature Wolters himself, a well-known personality in the hunting world, in the videos. But Middleton got around that obstacle by recruiting a dog trainer, rather than a professional actor, to appear in the videos.
After interviewing several prospects, Middleton chose trainer Charlie Jurney, from Charlotte, N.C. and a Wolters disciple.
"Game Dog" was released just before Christmas 1994, and garnered excelent reviews. Sales of the first video, mostly via direct mail and catalogs, were strong enough to justify making a second video, "Gun Dog," which was released in October ? and which Middleton and Olive Wolters both think is significantly better than the first.
Since then, "Water Dog", "Family Dog"and "Top Dog", which was completed in December of 1999, have been produced and have become popular and highly acclaimed videos. The Middletons have guided these videos to become far and away the best selling videos of their kind in three years. They occupy a unique niche of successful producers, marketers and distributors of dog training videos.
Their videos are now reviewed in the major magazines and newspapers across the country. Many dog breeders, professional dog trainers and veterinarians are recommending their videos, which are based upon time proven techniques. Humane Societies and animal shelters are promoting these tapes to help slow the numbers of untrained dogs being deposited there because their owners did not know how to train them. And with "Top Dog", dog owners can take their canines to advanced levels of training even easier with the proper use of the electronic collar.
Joseph & Leslie Middleton are convinced that, with the dog?s popularity on the rise and the American public?s growing acceptance of instructional videos, this is just the beginning. They envision their videos being perennial best sellers ? just like Richard?s books.
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