ABOUT FRANK PRICEÂ
For more than 20 years, Frank Price has trained and handled retrievers for field trials and hunt tests. His accomplishments include training and handling Field Champions, Amateur Field Champions, Grand Hunting Retriever Champions, and Master Hunters; developing numerous dogs to Qualified All-Age status; and placing multiple dogs on the National Derby List. He has also contributed significantly to the training of two National Finalists.
Frank trained and handled FC AFC Bayou Magic’s Fannie Quigley, the 2021 Purina High Point Derby Dog. He created Advanced Training Made Simple to share the systematic training progressions, lessons, and principles that have served him throughout his years as an amateur trainer and handler.
Â
How It Began
My love for Labrador retrievers began in a duck blind in 1971. I trained my first gun dog while attending college around 1980, but life eventually pulled me away from serious dog training.
That changed in early 2004 when Roux, a chocolate male, came into our lives. I was working away from home when Debbie picked him up at the airport. After only one night, she told me, “This one is different.” Neither of us knew just how right she was.
Roux went out in the first series of his first four derbies, but he—and I—kept learning. He eventually became a Field Champion, Amateur Field Champion, and Master Hunter and qualified for two National Amateur Championships. More importantly, he was my buddy and a world-class gun dog.
Many other remarkable dogs continued my education. GRHRCH Boot QA2 never failed an HRC test, including two Grands. He passed his first Grand the week he turned two and completed his Grand Hunting Retriever Champion title at only two and a half years old.
Roux, Boot, and the many dogs that followed helped shape the training principles I use today: build a strong foundation, teach before testing, read the individual dog, and never stop learning. Those principles became the foundation of Advanced Training Made Simple.
