Summer Training Program

Joe has a few openings for his summer gundog or young field trial dog training program in June and July. Please contact Joe for more information.

North Dakota & Texas Training Programs

Dogs going to North Dakota in August or Texas in December must be evaluated to establish that they are good candidates. Both places offer tremendous opportunities to expose dogs to wild birds. However, dogs must be in excellent physical health and condition and must be yard trained to benefit from these programs. Dogs that require yard training or conditioning will spend a month prior to the trip at Hard Driving Kennels. Please be sure your dogs are current on their vacinations. The state of North Dakota requires them to have a health certificate. Please contact Joe for more information.

Grouse Dog Training

Joe McCarl specializes in the development, training and handling of English setters and pointers. In the spring and fall, he competes in walking grouse and woodcock trials. During the balance of the year Joe takes on a limited number of gun dogs to do everything from starting the steadying process of youngsters to conditioning and sharpening the skills of veteran dogs who will be trialed or hunted.

In spring and early fall, dogs are trained on several species of wild birds including grouse, woodcock, sharptail and pheasant by traveling to some of the premier upland bird locales in the nation. During the summer months the training is done with liberated quail on his Pennsylvania training grounds. During the winter months, Joe takes a small, select string of dogs to west Texas to train on wild quail. He believes wild birds are essential in developing a dog to it’s highest potential: “Nothing excites me more than seeing a good wild bird dog and it takes wild birds to make a good bird dog.”

Joe has been training upland bird dogs since 1980. His success is attributed to hard work, experience, patience, a great rapport with the dogs supported by a thorough understanding of a finished bird dog. Hard Driving Kennels takes only a limited number of trial and gun dogs so each dog receives the individual attention and time needed to produce the desired results. Please contact Joe for more information on field trial and gun dog training programs.