Anyone who has hunted behind a well-trained bird dog knows that the experience can feel like walking within a midcentury painting. There is a timelessness to it. The frosty breeze winds through the crunchy wisps of dried grasses leftover from the summer lush. Hunters walk carefully behind the dog and wait for cues. The canine is well-attuned to its surroundings and telepathically connected to its handler as they work the landscape, on a mission to drum up a flurry of feathers, which will be met with the cadence of shotgun blasts.
Bird dogs, often referred to interchangeably as gun dogs, assist hunters during bird-hunting expeditions, by using their sense of smell, sight, and instinct to locate birds and push them out into the open. They require a specific set of skills to accomplish this task. It is more than simple obedience. The best gun dogs have a blend of specialized, hard-earned technical skills and softer skills that can only be inherited and nurtured, including an inborn desire to please and a friendly personality. Good bird dogs are partly bred and partly built by the consistent attention of a good dog trainer.
Often, bird dog trainers also work as upland hunting guides. Hunters who have traversed the hills in search of pheasants at Vernon National Shooting Preserve in upstate New York have probably encountered such hunting guides. One of these hunting guides is blonde-haired, blue-eyed 24-year-old Kyerra Walker. For her, the passion for the sport centers around the dogs.
Walker has been around upland dogs her entire life, specifically German Shorthair Pointers (GSP). As a toddler, she snuggled with puppies in her pack-and-play. As a kid, she locked herself in the dog kennel to hang out with the dogs. All throughout her childhood she was surrounded by, and took delight in, GSPs.
“I remember there never being a moment without a GSP right by my side,” she said.
As a teenager, after school, it was her responsibility to run the dogs in the fields. Her grandfather would join often her later in the day after he came home. Her grandfather was a dog trainer and as soon as she had a choice in the matter, she knew she wanted to follow in his footsteps.
“I remember watching my grandfather in the field and following along,” Walker said. “I learned a lot from him and that gave me a great introduction.”
The typically had at least one litter every summer, so come autumn hunting season, there were usually puppies ready to be trained.
“I’ll never forget that every year it felt more riveting and more exciting,” Walker said. “Once I was able to do it with my own puppies, it really hit home that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”
When she decided to devote her time to breeding and raising GSP’s she soaked up as much information as she could by reading articles, watching tutorials, and connecting with a community of other dog people, but Walker said her best education has come from doing the actual work of raising puppies.
“I have trained many, many dogs now, and I’m fortunate to have trained as many as I have by this time,” Walker said. “You learn so much about a dog’s body language when you are out in the field. Some of these social clues you can only pick up on when you have seen it over and over again. It gives me a type of excitement when I see it click for a dog. The moment I see a dog understand what we are doing and it all clicks, I know I’m doing my job properly.”
Walker currently maintains her own kennel and training operation, which is lovingly named T & Boo’s Kennel Walker’s GSPs. When Walker was growing up, her grandparents, who go by the nicknames T and Boo, raised German Shorthair Pointers. When she took over the operation, she wanted to honor them by maintaining that reference to their names and carrying it into the next generation.
“The name may be a mouthful, but it has a lot of meaning and it comes from the heart,” Walker said.
She currently has eight dogs in her breeding program, which has been growing over the last few years. The focus of her kennel is first and foremost to breed healthy dogs with great temperaments. She has carefully selected dogs to join her pack to ensure that she is breeding dogs with the best traits and that her lines are clean and fresh.
“The goal is to always be bettering an already amazing breed,” Walker said. “You’re always building to make the breed better. You’re not breeding just to breed dogs and sell puppies. So finding other amazing dogs to bring in good temperament and other traits keeps the lines very strong.”
In addition, she also runs an extensive training program for the GSPs that will grow to become upland hunting dogs and waterfowl hunting dogs.
Some puppies do go on to live in non-hunting homes as pets at eight weeks but those selected for training stay behind a bit longer. The dogs selected for the training program must have demonstrated a high potential to learn. Walker puts her puppies through a temperament test around the six/seven-week mark that includes indoor and outdoor obstacles. In these tests, she is assessing the puppies’ temperament and behaviors.
“What I’m looking for is a puppy that is eager to learn, really confident, and shows me that there is a great base to continue learning and become an awesome dog,” Walker said. “Not that the others aren’t, but in these temperament tests I’m looking for that shining student.”
Another thing that Walker is looking for in these tests is to see if the puppy demonstrates the natural sight point, which is instinctual and not taught. So much of the work that Walker does centers around identifying a dog’s natural inclinations and guiding them to make the most of it.
The GSPs in Walker’s training program have two main trajectories, which are upland hunting or waterfowl hunting, but many of her dogs cross-train for both activities.
Certain traits become obvious as Walker tests her puppies, which usually sets them on either path. Dogs that have the potential to become great upland hunting dogs will demonstrate hardiness and durability for getting down low and dipping through brush and briars. Another key factor for a potential upland hunting dog is a strong instinct to sight point and to hold that sight point for a while. This takes determination and patience within the dog, which are traits that cannot be taught, only nurtured.
Dogs that show potential to become waterfowl hunting dogs love to jump into water and have a strong desire to retrieve. One of the core dogs in Walker’s crew is her prized boy Bleu, who is a fully trained upland hunting dog and one of her top studs.
“Bleu is very special to me because he was my first pointer as an adult,” Walker said. “I did everything for him. I was going through college when I got him, so I was able to put so much of myself into him, and he has basically become my soul dog. We read the room perfectly, he reads my body language and I read his. He has always got my back. He is the most loyal and affectionate boy. I think he knew I was pregnant before I knew. He is a remarkable dog. Not that my others aren’t amazing in their own ways, but he has got a part of my heart and always will.”
The Pulaski, New York, native’s outdoor activities aren’t restricted to training and hunting with dogs. She also loves to participate in whitetail hunting with her family and especially loves turkey hunting.
“Spring is one of my favorite times of the year,” Walker said. “My grandfather and I used to go turkey hunting every weekend. I’m big into that.”
She also shoots her bow, mostly for fun. Beyond flinging arrows and hunting, Walker maintains a simple, full, and satisfying life.
“First and foremost, I’m a mom,” Walker said. “I met my significant other while I was in high school, he’s my heart school sweetheart, both of our families live close by, family is very important, and we just live this small-town life and enjoy every second of it.”
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