Bumpers - Canvas or Plastic (and what the pros won't tell you) - written by Butch Goodwin of Northern Flight

rofessional trainers have a secret they're not telling you. You can't find it in most of the training books; it's not revealed on the videos. Yeah, some experienced amateur trainers know, but often it takes years for a novice to find out - well, maybe "find out" is the wrong choice of words. Maybe "come to the realization" is better. And, I'm not going to tell you. Not yet, anyway; maybe later. And no peeking at the end of this column to to to find out, either!

Do you remember when the supermarket clerks used to ask "paper or plastic" to bag your groceries? Whatever happened to paper bags? Does anyone use them anymore? Everyone seems to have adopted the plastic bags. Personally, I don't like them, you can't expect them to stand tip with a load of well-packed groceries in the back of the car. I do like plastic bags, however, for keeping dead training birds in the freezer. And, you will, too, when you have to explain why the frozen vegetables are being crowded out by dead birds - but let's save that for later, too.

Anyhow, you have to answer similar questions when it comes to dog bumpers. You have to decide
"canvas or plastic." I used to wonder the same thing about canvas bumpers that I did about paper bags: "Does anybody use canvas bumpers anymore?" Then I rediscovered some of the advantages of canvas bumpers and have incorporated them as an integral part of my training program ever since.

To make an educated decision about which bumpers and why, we have to examine the positive and negative points of each. Then we need to take a look at the alternatives to bumpers that are available. But I need to tell a short story first.

Just last night, a gentleman called me for information about training his pup. In the course of the conversation, he said, "She fetches the sticks that I throw in the water, really well." I felt my blood pressure going up! Please, if you are a novice trainer and, if you don't listen to anything else I tell you, please hear this: Don't throw sticks for a hunting dog. If you do, I will guarantee you that at Some point, your super hunter won't be able to find a downed bird, and he will bring you a stick! Start him off right, and you won't have a problem to correct later, Don't throw sticks; invest in bumpers from the start.
Now that I'm off my soapbox, let's take a look at plastic bumpers first.

lastic training bumpers are by far the best value on the market. They are available from a variety of sources, and you can find them in nearly every sporting goods store and catalog around the country. You can buy them from the dog training-supply catalogs as singles or in multiples. You can also buy them directly from the manufacturer with colors all the same or mixed. Neumann & Bennett in Klamath Falls, Oregon, is one of the major manufacturers of plastic bumpers. They have been making the Plastiduk duck decoy since the 1950s.

The major advantage of plastic bumpers is that they are available in a variety of colors (white, orange, green, yellow, grey, and black and other variations), and they hold their color. Each color has a bit different visibility depending upon the background, lighting, and conditions that you are training in.

White, of course, is the most popular color for most training, and orange (which appears as a shade of grey to a dog but is quite visible to the human eye) is for handling experienced dogs to blind retrieves. Plastic bumpers are available in two different sizes, 2" × 12" and 3" × 12"; pups can handle the smaller ones without problem. If they get dirty when you landed them in a cowpie by mistake (the bumpers, not the pup), you simply hose them off to get them back to their original color (actually, that works for the pup, too). The larger sized white plastic bumpers are unsurpassed for teaching basic lining and handling where the dog can immediately see the bumpers and be successful by running or casting to the pile.

I mentioned that I have used a variation of the canvas bumper with terrific results. I have found that the bumpers made by Real Duck of Snohomish, Washington, are a major improvement over the canvas bumpers that we all have known for years. Actually, their bumper is an updated version of one that was made in Canada many years ago. The bumpers are kind of "spendy," but if you want equipment you can rely on, these fit the bill, Real Duck uses polyester fire hose material, which is virtually indestructible. They fill the bumpers with tightly packed ground cork, and both ends are stitched closed with several rows of polyester thread. A plastic rope is sewn into the bumper, and all you have to do is tie a knot and melt the end of the rope so that it doesn't fray. Take a look at their bumpers.

Another innovation that definitely deserves mentioning is the Dokken Dead Fowl trainer. The dogs love these. Although they certainly aren't meant to replace bumpers for drill work, these somewhat realistic training accessories come as close as anything to simulating a real bird. They have good consistency for the dog to hold and get a good grip without any mouthing, and the free-swinging head simulates the natural swinging of a dead bird. This training accessory is expensive but can be found in most catalogs of training equipment; and like I said, for some reason, the dogs really seem to love them!

Plastic bumpers also have significant weight behind them, so when they are thrown, they can be directed exactly at the point they are to land and are unaffected by light breezes. Most brands do not come with ropes attached, so you will need to buy and cut a length of rope for throwing them. A couple of suggestions here: Plastic rope like water ski rope works well, won't rot, and doesn't get waterlogged. Attach a comfortable length of fairly stout diameter rope at least 12 inches long, and remember to cut the individual ropes longer as you will need to knot each end; then burn the ends to prevent fraying. You will need a bunch of bumpers if you expect to train a retriever to any sort of an advanced level, so you might as well go ahead and invest in a dozen or so. They are the meat and potatoes of training bumpers.

Now for the downside of plastic: First, there are plastic bumpers that are quite hard and others that are quite soft. Often, when ordering a dozen or more bumpers from a manufacturer or catalog, there is tremendous inconsistency in the uniformity of the firmness of the bumpers. This can result in varied weight, which often results in inconsistent throws. Dogs also tend to "mouth" or squeeze and roll the softer ones more when carrying or swimming long distances with them. When the weather is hot, dogs tend to drool more, and the plastic gets slimy and can be hard for them to hold correctly in their mouth, again, leading to the possibility of problems related to mouthing.

If a plastic bumper gets a crack or if the valve begins to leak, it isn't uncommon for water to get inside - resulting in inconsistent throws or a bumper that, when squeezed by a dog, allows air to "breathe" in and out.

Plastic bumpers do crack from extended use, but they also tend to crack quite easily when training during the winter. The plastic gets hard; when training in cold temperatures and a frozen bumper hits the frozen ground, serious breaks occur quite regularly.

A couple of other drawbacks - the smaller diameter plastic bumpers are often like a bullet dropping from the air, and when they hit the water, if the bottom is shallow and quite soft, they will drive into the mud, perhaps never to be seen again! This happens more frequently that I care to think about in one of the ponds where I train quite regularly. I'll bet there are at least a dozen bumpers stuck in the mud in the bottom of that pond; occasionally one will surface at a later date - but most are simply gone. And finally, plastic bumpers don't hold scent very well, so a dog using his nose and hunting in heavy cover for a bumper can often run right over it.

anvas bumpers are available in most sporting goods stores and dog-supply catalogs and are usually not as inexpensive to buy as their plastic cousins. They are often canvas-covered foam or some other type of filling, with a grommet in the top for attaching a throwing rope. I have heard trainers say that canvas bumpers are dinosaurs, long since dead and gone. I have to totally disagree with that.

There are definite advantages to canvas and some of the variations of the canvas bumper, along with some serious drawbacks, but they should still be a part of every dog trainer's arsenal of training tools. Let me explain. First, the most obvious advantage of canvas is that they feel more comfortable in a dog's mouth, like I said previously, the fewer mouth problems you create, the less you have to correct.

During the summer, I use a variation of the canvas bumper almost exclusively. Mouthing the bumper and having it slide out of a dog's mouth during land drills when it is hot is something I simply don't have to worry about with canvas. Along the same lines, during the winter when the ground is frozen and bumpers are cold, plastic bumpers will crack and are relatively uncomfortable for a dog to carry. But canvas is still similar in consistency to what it is in the summer. They hold scent well, and rarely does a dog miss a canvas bumper when using his nose to seek it out in heavy cover or snow. From my experience, I simply think that dogs like them better during the extremes of weather. A major disadvantage to canvas is that it gets dirty and will never really clean up. You can scrub, but if you need nice bright white bumpers for running sight blinds at a distance or for handling drills, canvas can be difficult to see. Canvas bumpers are also not very heavy and when thrown, can be affected by wind, occasionally making throws inconsistent; but I think the advantages of better feel to a dog and better scenting make it worth investing in a dozen or so canvas training bumpers.

ow, I'm going to tell you the secret that the pros have, that they hope you don't realize any time soon. Have you ever looked at the top of a truck that a professional retriever trainer drives? What is up there? Yeah, maybe a spare tire and a couple of dog crates, but almost always there is a crate of live birds. How do you think these professionals get the results they do? It is very simple: They see to it that every one of the dogs on their truck gets plenty of shot fliers and thrown dead birds.

When I worked for a field trial professional, we had a refrigerator in the kennel with burlap bags full of dead ducks in it. Now, maybe your significant other won't go for taking over the refrigerator with bags of dead ducks or pheasants or pigeons, but I bet he or she wouldn't mind a few in plastic bags in the freezer. I also bet you could find a place in the garage to put an old refrigerator to keep some birds (and you could keep your brewskis out there, too).

For years, I have harped on using birds for training. I had a professional gun dog trainer tell me one time that his training program consisted of about 80 percent birds for doing all of his training beyond basic drillwork. I believe it.

Okay, so bumpers are the meat and potatoes of dog training; but if you want to play with the big boys, bumpers are no substitute for birds both dead and alive. And, until you realize it, you are still frolicking on the elementary school playground!