Tennessee Trainer in Limelight After Winning ESPN Competition
An Introduction to Handling

J. Paul Jackson was checking into a motel 400 miles from his Dyersburg, Tennessee home when another guest approached him in the lobby.  “Aren’t you J. Paul Jackson, the guy who trained Achilles?” the man asked.     

If J. Paul was a bit stunned, it’s because dog training isn’t exactly a high-profile profession.  Retriever trainers don’t have fan clubs, don’t make the cover of Sports Illustrated and don’t receive invitations to appear on the Letterman show.

And they certainly aren’t asked to sign autographs, which J. Paul did that day and has been doing a lot of ever since.

Television can turn virtually anyone into an overnight celebrity, and that’s what happened to J. Paul last summer when he and a high-octane seven-year-old black Labrador named Achilles won the gold medal in the Super Retriever Series at ESPN’s Great Outdoor Games held in Madison, Wisconsin.

“It’s been pretty amazing,” says the gravel-voiced Jackson, a former registered nurse who’s been training hunting dogs since 1987 and has been making a full-time living at it for seven years.  “I never would have believed the impact a television show can have.”

J. Paul insists that Achilles—named for the mythical Greek hero after suffering a foot injury when he was a puppy—is the real star of the show. “That’s one very special animal,” Jackson says of the lean, athletic Labrador owned by Richard Mills of Memphis, Tennessee.

Achilles’ special gifts were never more apparent than in the final and deciding test of the Great Outdoor Games. 

It was a real doozy.

Each of the four final-round qualifiers had to pick up a quad (four birds), a walk in the park for retrievers of that caliber.  But the judges had a little surprise up their sleeves: Just as the dogs opened their mouths to grab the Dokken (a duck-like training dummy), it disappeared underwater, simulating a diving duck.  After five seconds, competitors had to handle their dogs away from the area of the fall to a bird hidden in tall weeds on the other side of a point.

Judges penalize contestants for a variety of faults, and it was apparent the diving duck was the make-or-break retrieve in the competition. Even the thoroughbreds in the GOG field would be reluctant to leave a bird that moments earlier had been right under their noses.

Close-ups of J. Paul’s face during the final test revealed one of the secrets to his success: The blood-and-guts intensity of a National Football League linebacker.  As his wife Melanie looked on from the gallery, Jackson kept his emotions in check and made a decision that may have spelled the difference. “I was really pumped, and on my first two commands I gave Achilles a big, verbal ‘over’, the kind we usually use when trying to get the dog to go ‘back’.”

Communication between dog and handler is critical.  Realizing Achilles may have been confused by the booming verbal command, J. Paul followed with a silent, sweeping hand signal.  Achilles got the message and handled almost flawlessly to the bird, finishing with a tough-to-beat 29 penalty points.

Two teams—Alex Washburn with five-year-old Ready and Jerry Day with six-year-old Nike—were left to compete, and J. Paul knew each was capable of posting a lower score .  Nike racked up 34 points on the final bird to finish with 55 points.  Ready button-holed the first three birds, but collected 41 points on the diver to finish second with 53 total points.  Stacy West running Rankin finished fourth.

“I really like that test because it’s true-to-life,” says J. Paul.  “Wounded ducks often dive and come up 50 yards away.  If you can’t handle a dog to a bird it didn’t see, you’re going to have to pick it up yourself or you’re going to lose it. Teaching a dog to handle is important.”

Handlers in field trials, hunt tests and hunter retriever tests must be able to send dogs great distances to collect birds they didn’t see, directing the dogs by using a combination of whistle, hand and voice commands.

The dogs perform like guided missiles, taking 200- to 400-yard blinds, stopping and sitting on a single whistle blast, and changing directions when given a hand signal and a verbal “over” or a “back” from their handler.

While few of us will ever own a dog that can do 250-yard blind retrieves, J. Paul says most retrievers are capable of being handled, and he’s going to share his secrets for training a dog to handle in the next two issues of Delta Waterfowl Magazine.

“A knot-on-a-log retriever isn’t going to qualify for the Great Outdoor Games,” says Jackson, “but through repetition, just about any dog can be trained to handle.”

How does a hunter determine if a dog is a candidate for handling?

“First, a dog must have the desire to retrieve.  You want a dog with a good work ethic, one that really wants to pick up birds.  If the dog doesn’t have that desire, it might quit before you can teach them to handle.

“The second thing you need is a dog that’s tractable, one that is eager to please.  Show me a dog that wants to please and is enthusiastic about retrieving, and I’ll show you a dog that can be handled.”     

The key, he says, is repetition.  “You just keep running the drills day after day and it won’t be long before the dog is responding to your commands.  If you work at it six days a week, 15 to 20 minutes a day, the dog should start to get the hang of it in two weeks.”

Contrary to what old-school trainers believed, J. Paul says most dogs are ready to start handling at four or five months.  “Focus is the key,” he says.  “Once the dog has enough focus—when it looks like it would keep picking up dummies all day—it’s probably ready to start handling.”

J. Paul starts teaching the mechanics of handling almost immediately.  “Sometimes when the dog brings back a dummy, I’ll stop him in front rather than having him come to my side.  With the dog facing me, I’ll toss the dummy one way or the other and send the dog with a hand signal and an ‘over’.  The dog is already learning the basics of handling.”

The second step is the force-fetch, and J. Paul encourages every trainer to put his or her dog through a force-fetch program, either at home or with a professional trainer. “We use hand signals on the force-fetch table,” he says. “Handling becomes an extension of force-fetching.”

The next step is a collar-conditioning program. “I’d strongly recommend every trainer get a copy of Mike Lardy’s video tape and manual Total E-Collar Conditioning, ($59.95; call 1-800-848-5963 or visit www.totalretriever.com).  It’s the best thing out there on electronic collars.

“The key is to develop a plan,” he says. “You have to evaluate your dog, then come up with a training plan and stick to it.  Nobody plans to fail, but too many handlers fail to plan.

“Part of that planning is determining if you have the patience and the time to get the job done,” he says. “Training a dog to handle is a big commitment, and if you can’t see it through to the end you might want to think about seeking out a professional trainer.”

Anyone interested in sending a dog to J. Paul for training can contact him at Lone Oak Retrievers, 731-589-0464.  But be prepared for a busy signal.  His phone’s been ringing off the hook since Achilles won the Great Outdoor Games.  “Right now I have the capacity to train 25 dogs and that’s what we have,” he says. “We’re turning dogs away.”

Since the GOG, Jackson has been traveling the country with a dozen dogs, only one of which—an eight-year-old yellow Lab named Mattie, a cancer survivor—belongs to the family. 

In addition to his degree in nursing, Jackson, 40, also has degrees in business and human environmental sciences.  He and Melanie have three daughters, Lauren (9), McKenzie (8) and Hannah (4).   Melanie is J. Paul’s business partner and co-trainer, and the girls often travel with them to hunt tests.

The whole Jackson clan will be back next year, gunning for a second gold medal at the Great Outdoor Games.  The top three finishers each year earn automatic seeds into the 12-team competition, three teams will receive at-large invitations based on showings in three Super Retriever Series qualifying events, and the other six spots will be filled by the top two finishers in those SRS qualifiers.

If J. Paul and Achilles were a long-shot in the most recent GOG, they’ll rank among the favorites next time around.  It’s clear this duo isn’t going to be content with just 15 minutes of fame.