![]() My yellow brick road to Rick and Huntsmith started with Jane and Neal Kauder, owners and proprietors of the Orapax Hunting Preserve, the dear friends who provide me with open access to their spectacular grounds and birds with which to regularly train Lincoln ( Orapax’s dog training membership is a true gem and rare bargain for beginners), and the consistent encouragement someone new to training a bird dog for both home and field needs. While I’m sure that’s rightly the case, I only later learned his incredible generosity as a teacher and mentor was not withheld from his fellow Virginians in his adopted home. Todd off-handedly mentioned to me early on that “I think Rick actually lives somewhere near you.” Eagerly following up on Todd’s lead, I noted an 804 area code in the contact references for Rick on the Huntsmith website but was disappointed that there was no description of a local kennel or training operation and assumed Rick spent the vast majority of his time traveling and probably valued his privacy and downtime when at home in Virginia (exactly where, we weren’t entirely sure). Lincoln’s breeder, Todd Parmenter of Dogwood Brittanys in Peoria, Illinois, had first suggested Rick as the instructor, and Huntsmith as the system, they most recommended for their dogs among the panoply of great options available today, many of which claim Delmar, Rick, Ronnie, and The Huntsmith Training Method as some greater or lesser part of their philosophical DNA. When I started out with Lincoln, I assumed that was the case. Now all this could be the prelude to a lamentable description of a “cobbler’s kids have no shoes” sort of situation, and our great commonwealth might not benefit at all by Rick’s residency, so punishing is his travel schedule and demand for his instruction nationally and internationally. For the past decade, Rick has in fact lived right here in central Virginia. Even dedicated bird dog folks in Virginia might be forgiven for not realizing that this scion of bird dog royalty actually moves and dwells among us, that is when he’s not off to far-flung outposts of birddogdom across the nation and world, presiding over his and Ronnie’s popular weekend Huntsmith Training seminars. For much of his life, they’d have been right. But, if you were to ask those same upland hunters and bird dog enthusiasts where Rick might live, I’d be willing to bet the vast majority would offer Oklahoma as their best guess. ![]() “Dutch” Epperson, and that he created the wildly-popular Huntsmith Silent Command System of bird dog training along with his cousin Ronnie Smith. They’d no doubt be able to tell you that Rick is a member of the Bird Dog Hall of Fame, is the son of the legendary Delmar Smith (still active at the age of 93), is the grandson of the legendary B.F. When upland hunters and bird dog enthusiasts world-wide hear the name “Rick Smith,” they will immediately know we’re talking about one of the most famous bird dog trainers in the world today. ![]()
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