Bob Paucek from Buckston, Maine has spent a lifetime training bird dogs. As a young boy he started working dogs with his father who was a Maine guide. Bob's dad guided several well known people including Ted Williams, the Boston Red Sox legend. As a teenager in 1945, he started working as an assistant to a bird dog trainer in Lebanon, Maine named Arthur Stackpole. Stackpole had previously been a professional player for the Chicago White Sox. After two years of working for Stackpole, Bob had the opportunity to work for H. O. Brewer a man who had a large horse farm in Massachusetts, along with several businesses. Bob's job was to go out each day with three dogs and work them on wild birds. Since Bob had no drivers license, Brewer's chauffeur would drive, and the dogs traveled in the trunk. Bob's job involved killing a limit of birds for himself and the chauffeur each day so that Brewer had a freezer full of game. If they found a good cover he was not to clean it out as Brewer himself wanted to hunt on the weekends.
Bob and his dad also boarded dogs around that time. There was a gentleman from Cape Cod who had twelve hunting dogs of various breeds. The Paucek's were getting twenty five cents a day at that time and calculated that they needed to increase their charge per day. After announcing they were going to thirty cents, the man with the twelve dogs pulled all the dogs. They were only gone about a week until they came back!
In the late 1940's Bob trained several dogs for John Denton Scott and his friends. Scott was the editor of Field and Stream magazine and a huge proponent with the importation of the Weimaraner breed. Years ago Bob had a bird dog client named DR. Rudy Winkelbauer who had imported several dogs from England and Ireland. One was a tri-colored setter named "Sharnberry Red Bracken" who was a multi champion prior to being imported. Also memorable was a pointer called "Blackfield Bonnie", who was later bred to Hall of Fame trainer, Gerald Tracy's winning dog, "Andy Capp". This breeding produced "Blackfield Ben" who Bob ran very successfully on the east coast. In 1978 Bob's training methods were showcased in the book by Sports Afield gun dog editor Jerome Robinson, titled "Hunt Close". For several years Bob owned and operated a boarding kennel in Buckston, Maine along with training dogs. Bob worked at a lot of different jobs over the years but always returned to training bird dogs. That was what he loved and he has made a great career out of it. His preference in bird dogs are pointers followed by setters but he has worked many breeds of bird dogs over the years. He gets enjoyment out of any dog, of any breed as long as they can do the job. Bob's training career has undergone many changes over the years. When he started training as a youngster, all training was done on wild birds with a checkcord and a flushing whip. As years went by, methods of training improved from the checkcord, flushing whip and wild birds to using released birds, e-collars, trackers, electronic backing dummies and many different tactics for training. Bob knew you had to adapt to those methods or be left behind. Bessides training dogs, Bob has donated a lot of time to improve the bird dog sport by doing training seminars, judging bird dog events, organizing and running field trials, finding and developing field trial grounds. He was also very active in the Maine bird dog club which at one time had over 125 members.He not only trained in Maine but spent many years in the winter training and running dogs in Texas, Arkansas and South Carolina. Bob Paucek is my friend and has been for over forty years. We spent a lot of time running dogs together over the years and have kept in touch continually during that time. I happened to be talking to him just the other day and after that phone call decided that I had better put all these notes about him, that I started taking over ten years ago, to finally get this article written. What pushed me over the edge was during out phone our phone call, Bob told me that his ten dog runs were filled with dogs he had in to train this summer. Not bad for a ninety five year (young) dog trainer. Don't we all wish we could do that? Bob Fleury
Bob is "The Dean" of New England Bird Dog Trainers. He is amazing! I know of a couple of interviews with him out there. One by Ryan Frame on Camera and another with Paul Fullers "Bird Dogs Afield". I had a chance to visit with him in May at The Maine Bird Dog Clubs spring trial. His sense of humor and power of recall is as sharp as ever!
on 8/5/2022, 8:23 pm
