Willis slobbers and can’t sit still, his front feet pounding up and down like he’s banging on drums. His tail goes back and forth in the thick wet grass, spraying drops like a sprinkler.
A black labrador retriever, Willis is born for this—the hunt. While it’s just a training day out in the Northern Neck country and not an actual hunt, Willis tends not to dwell on that distinction. He just cannot wait to run out and snag a raggedy, feathered dummy duck that will drop out of the cloudless sky right after a shotgun blast.
Willis waits. And waits. He’s still waiting. It’s killing him.
He creeps forward on his haunches. He’s locked in a battle of wills with his trainer, Brandon Sweesy, who runs Northern Air Retrievers. Sweesy cradles a shotgun loaded with blanks. He’s seated next to the black lab, looking remarkably relaxed. He’s the calm, collected foil to Willis’ desperate primal urgency.
“Heel,” Sweesy says firmly, glancing down at Willis. “Heel.” Willis edges back to get behind Sweesy’s feet. Willis does not take his eyes off the distant tree in front of him.
Training and More Training
Willis is learning the hard way that in a battle of wills with Sweesy, he’ll lose. Or maybe it’s that he’ll win because Sweesy isn’t here sweating out another humid July morning for fun and games and to play fetch with Willis. And Chief, Urkel, Jetty, Angus and dozens of other dogs. He’s here off a dirt lane near the remote outpost of Hague to make great gundogs. That includes Willis.
It’s another in endless days of field training days for Sweesy. The idea is to gauge the dog’s progress in finding, retrieving and handling, along with obedience to the dog’s handler. Sweesy’s team runs through a series of realistic hunting tests—commands, gunshots, ducks hitting the ground—for the dogs to find the dummy ducks.
One exercise is a “blind” test in which a dummy duck is near a distant stake and Sweesy gives the dog hand and voice commands to find it instead of a realistic hunting scenario in which the dog can watch the duck flop out of the air after a gunshot. If the dog veers off course, Sweesy deploys a loud whistle to halt the dog, have it look at him, and with hand motions and voice commands steer it back on course.
Sera Petras Photography
Brandon Sweesy guides pups into skilled gundogs, steadying eager energy into disciplined champions through his business, Northern Air Retrievers.
Joining Sweesy is a small crew of helpers, pickups full of dogs, bottled water, packs of McDonald’s hash browns to snack on and dummy ducks. The days are long, the dogs have their moments, it’s bone-burning hot in summer and bone-chilling cold in winter. But if you ask Sweesy, he’ll say it sure beats the heck out of the endless days of his old job as a window installer.
So here he is again with his team, the dogs and a couple of visitors. Thankfully the sun is still fairly low in the sky as we sit in folding camping chairs in the relative cool shade of tall, wide oaks that fan out behind us. To the left of us is Taylor Hennage, Sweesy’s partner and the breeding whisperer of their business, Red Tide Retrievers.
Great Breeding Begets Great Dogs
Sera Petras Photography
From selecting the perfect stud to raising puppies, Taylor Hennage shapes the bloodlines that define Red Tide Retrievers.
Hennage grew up on the Northern Neck and does it all, running the administrative side of Red Tide Retrievers. She also coordinates client care, selects the stud dogs, oversees the breeding process, is the puppy midwife, raises the pups and then finds homes for them.
She’s really good at what she does; clients come from all over the U.S., as well as Brazil and Canada. Her introduction to labs came when she was still in college. “I knew absolutely nothing about dogs,” she said.
She studied biology, which she didn’t really care for. But the genetics studies in the curriculum sure come in handy now. She was in college and playing with a litter of puppies when she fell in love with one little red lab. “That’s how they get you,” she said of the breeders. The dog, “Luna,” went to college with her and they’ve been together ever since.
“She is the best dog I will probably ever have in my life,” Hennage said.
The Dream
Sweesy is head trainer. Born in Michigan, he grew up playing hockey and hunting ducks with his father before moving to Virginia in 2020. He came to training gundogs naturally—as a hunter. It started in 2016 back in Michigan when Sweesy sent a dog off to get trained by a professional. After he got the dog back, he kept progressing with the gundog and the trainer let him mentor under her.
“I learned a very good bit under her,” he said.
Soon he was hooked on training gundogs. He filled his playlist with podcasts about training gundogs. He had plenty of time to sharpen up on all things training hunting dogs while bending metal and installing windows.
It wasn’t long before he found his calling after training two of his own hunting dogs and running his first hunt test. His career success arc is sharp as Sweesy is now ranked #18 in the U.S. Over two weeks in July, Sweesy traveled more than 2,500 miles for three grueling and competitive field trials to gauge the dog’s ability to pass hunting scenarios that are focused on retrieving.
A Master Pass is the highest level gauging a dog’s retrieving ability. The dog must successfully pass a series of tests across various scenarios involving multiple land and water marks, blind retrieves and honoring other dogs’ retrieves.
Sweesy brought home three Master Hunter titles, and four more of his dogs—six in total—qualified for the national competition later this year in Texas. He also earned his 53rd Master Pass of the year, surpassing his goal of 50 for the year. He’d done all that by July.
Double the ribbons, double the pride. Proof that dedication from the trainer and the dog pays off in the field, showing the strength of their teamwork.
The Gundog Process
Our feet are wet from walking through tall grass that bends under the weight of the morning dew. The air is so thick you can almost pinch it between your fingers. Tiny insects relentlessly dive-bomb us, of course.
An orchestra of songbirds, cicadas and crickets thrum in surround sound. It mixes with the woofs and yaps of the 38 labs of all colors, sizes and ages that are here with us and—except for a few like the young pups—are itching to hunt down the dummy ducks falling out of the sky.
It’s mid-July in the salty swelter of coastal Virginia. Which means by 10 am it’s 80 degrees with 72% humidity—a real feel of 85 degrees. But the dogs don’t care about the trees, the insects, the wet grass or the heat and humidity.
They are here for just one thing: the hunt. They just want to hear Sweesy call their name after the obligatory shotgun blast.
A gently sloping hill stretches out in front of us. It reminds me of a meadow. In front of us four big old oaks maybe 80 to 100 yards away dominate the vista. A lightly traveled narrow dirt lane bisects the grass in front of the farthest oak. About 60 yards away, just to the right of the oaks, is another tall tree. Looks like a hickory to the untrained tree identification eye.
This spot is one of several across the Northern Neck that are in Sweesy’s training rotation. He rotates locations to change it up and so it doesn’t become repetitive to the dogs. A couple times a week they do water work.
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Sera Petras Photography
Leap, splash, swim, retrieve—water work is a favorite for labs and a vital step in their gundog training.
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Sera Petras Photography
Leap, splash, swim, retrieve—water work is a favorite for labs and a vital step in their gundog training.
T.J. Branch is the designated dummy duck chucker. He’s good at what he does. He rides out on a four-wheeler with a passel of dummy ducks and stands out of sight behind one of the trees. At the crack of the shotgun he lobs a duck into the air. Sweesy hardly lets out a breath to say Willis’ name before he’s sprinting off to retrieve the duck. He swoops past it, bounds around in the grass a bit, finds the duck and brings it right back. Nice job, Willis.
All morning and into the afternoon each dog takes its turn. They have varying levels of success, but that’s part of the process. Sweesy trains a dog owned by Marion James Packett, owner of Poplar Ridge Nursery in Montross. Packett trusts Sweesy completely.
“A dog is only as good as his handler,” he said. “You give them an inch and they take a mile.”
The making of a gundog is found in moments big and small—the focus in the field, the thrill of the retrieve, and the success earned through dedication.
For the Love of the Gundog
But training dogs isn’t for everyone. Or hardly anyone. There’re no sick days, no holidays, no paid time off.
“It’s definitely a lifestyle. It’s not a 9 to 5. You’ve got to love to do it—all the time. There’re some days it’s a lot of fun and some days it’s a lot of work,” Sweesy said, pausing to think about it. “Well, there’s always a lot of work but some days it’s more fun.”
But then there are moments when it all comes together. Or moments that seem surreal. Like earlier this year when Bob Owens of Lone Duck Outfitters & Kennels had Sweesy come on his podcast as a guest. It was one of the podcasts Sweesy listened to all the time when he was dreaming about leaving window installing behind and training gundogs.
Sweesy had the chance to spend a full day training dogs with Owens down in South Carolina. Owens brought it up early in the episode.
“You do a phenomenal job,” Owens told Sweesy. “The caliber of dogs that you’ve built is very, very good. Your demeanor at the line, demeanor when they screw up and you’re battling them…you’re very patient and calm. I don’t think I ever heard you raise your voice. It was just really enjoyable. I think very highly of you.”
Willis just nods.
Northern Air Retrievers I Warsaw I 248-709-1596 I Facebook.com/northernairretrievers
Red Tide Retrievers I Warsaw I 804-761-8794 I retideretrievers.com
