Whitewater Gundogs Training

07/02/2025

PART TWO

Rob demonstrates how the training for Here, Heel, Hup translates to the field with four of our young dogs.

07/02/2025

PART ONE

Rob demonstrates how he begins transitioning our Spaniels from Upland AKC Springer and Cocker Spaniel Field Trial work to HRC and AKC Retriever Hunt Tests wo...

06/22/2025

Lazy Sunday for Flint and Cody

06/11/2025

It's that time of year again when pond maintenance is important. Sonda and I treated this pond about three weeks ago for weeds and I just treated it for algae. Algae will be an on going thing thru out the summer as temps rise.
I use a die specially for ponds. It cuts the sunlight which hampers the Algae growth. Doesn't hurt the aquatic life or the dogs just have to keep them out fof a couple of days or they will turn blue as well.
The first pond pic was yesterday after initial treatment you can see where I put the die along three edges.
The second pond pic is from this morning die is spread thru out the pond.

06/08/2025

Sonda and I traveled west to Sauvie's Island which is just west of Portland Oregon to train with the Newaukum River Retriever Club as well as the Lower Columbia Retriever Clubs joint training day.
We had a great day even tho the temps where getting up there.
We just ran the big dogs. Hawk, Rogue, Flint and Breeze. For not really spending much time with Retriever training the last few months. I thought they all did very well.
Especially Rogue who we took out of Retriever training over a year and half ago. He stepped on all the marks but he made me work on the blind which was between the middle bird and far left bird out about 100 yards ( roughly) but he got it. Not bad for the little guy. We're hanging out at Dave and Davie Bergs for the evening and do a little training with them before heading back home tomorrow.
I think we will focus on just running Rogue in HRC for awhile, he's has his FC and doesn't really need to run Field Trials at this time plus I don't see us going to any Cocker Nationals. So let's get his HRCH on him.

06/03/2025

Riot, another puppy out of Hawk. Wrndy is her mom a full sister to Maddie.
If you have been following our YouTube channel you have watched her grow up.
She's just 11 months old but acts much older (most of the time) Yesterday I put her on the table to work on hold and delivery. Today she is walking up and down the table holding her bumper. Usually this take 5 days or longer. The speed she is learning is typical for her, always pushing.
She also started her heel/here drills as well as her retriever style finished delivery. From there we'll work on wagon wheels (lining drills) She's still a long away from using these skills but at her progress maybe sooner than later.
Most of our Hawk puppies have been very similar.
We will be steadying her up throughout the summer and plan on running her in puppy stakes this fall. She reminds me alot of her dad with the character of her mom. Super fun puppy to work with.
We will repeating this breeding in the very very near future.

05/27/2025

Spent Memorial Day playing with the young dogs. Their ready to start stretching their marks out.. Take a look pretty informative

Rob discusses some of the equipment he uses in training the dogs, best circumstances for each and then demonstrates introducing 5 of our younger and more ine...

05/19/2025

This dog training thing for me started in 1981 with my first spaniel. I followed Michael Duffy's training books and self taught. I spent a lot of time in The foothills of the Cascade's hunting Ruffs. It wasn't until 1985 that I starting spending time with a local retriever pro who I met by selling pigeons to him. Shortly after I started doing all his obedience training followed by him teaching me his forcing program and eventually field work. During this time he gave me this manual. Little did I know it was a copy of an original manuscript of tri-tonics "Understanding Electronic Dog-Training" He would randomly test me on it's content. After a year he started teaching me how to use an E-Collar.
By the time I started training spaniels professionally. I had a pretty good idea how to properly use the collar.
I have seen some pretty bad stuff concerning collar training which is why I try to spend the time, making videos, teaching seminars and one-on-one training with clients to help people learn best practices when introducing an e-collar into their training program
Ths manual is 126 pages of valuable info. I quess you could call it my Bible I go back to it frequently.
It's unfortunate that the missuse of this tool has made such a negative view.
I hope our YouTube videos help to change that view.

05/17/2025

https://youtu.be/EBi6_SzQ-dk?si=tuiPC6sVWfoFx7dq

i want to give Sonda a ton of credit for producing this video. Well over 8 hours of editing not to mention the videoing time.
We have 78 videos out at this time on our Youtube channel.
These video's are educational but more a reflection of our training program. If you can get something out of them that is great! As mentioned Sonda's time she has spent producing these is nothing short of amazing.
Since the early 90's i have been an advocate of helping the trainer. In 1996 i went as far a writing a training manual for Electronic Training specifically for Spaniels. At that time there was a ton of misinformation about the use of electronic training devices, so I decided not to market it, it was given exclusively to my clients at the time.
It is true that if e-collars are used inappropriately they can and do cause issues, thus the importance of the trainer doing some studying, learning safe, positive methods of using this tool prior to ever introducing an e-collar into your training program.
These Youtube videos are just a modern way to share info to the trainers, to help them. I hope you enjoy them and that they are helpful.
On another note the dog In this particular video (Draven) has run three all age trials and has placed in two and won't be two until the end of May.

Follow along with Whitewaters High Desert DRAVEN as Rob Barlow guides him through the complete E-Collar Conditioning Program. This is a fu...

05/08/2025

https://youtu.be/N0DR2CctOlM

Team Building Exercise with 5 of our advanced level Springers- Maddie, Hawk, Maverick, Wryndy and Draven and Cocker- Rogue. Developing the trust between dog ...

05/07/2025

Tomorrow is National Stay at Home with Your Dog and Drink Wine Day. 🐶🍷
It’s nothing official. I made it up - tell the others. 😎🗣️📣

05/02/2025

Just some random dog pics.