The Hunter's Hound - MR Ian Micheal Barnett

I am not an out-and-out dog trainer. Nor have I ever set out to train my hunting hounds to comply with the competition-type discipline demanded by field-trialling devotees. I am a hunter. My preferred shooting discipline, upon which I have built a solid reputation in the UK as a photo-journalist and author, is small vermin hunting with the air rifle. Throughout hundreds of magazine articles, blogs and two published books on the subject there has been a stalwart companion at my side. My lurcher, Dylan ... who is ten years old as I write this. His training, accomplished between puppy-hood and three years old was a long apprenticeship. My readers have shared the humour, frustration, often near-tragedy but mostly success that Dylan and I have enjoyed as a partnership. Those are stories for a future book. Over the years I have supplied myriad short articles to the country-sports press (and even chapters in my books) about how Dylan and I work together. I have finally succumbed to the many requests that I write a book on how I trained Dylan to work with the rifle.