Information taken from another website on Richard A. Wolters.... Referred to in the following alot as RAW....

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As regarding Richard A. Wolters, here are a couple of more observations about him from a retriever website:

"Wolters was an Insurance Salesman (or was it Real Estate?) that had a knack for writing & promoting, not a dog trainer. I can also give you the name of the Dog Trainer that rented him a kennel for "Tar" and straightened out Wolter's screw-ups."

"RAW never trained a dog before he wrote Water Dog. He sat down with Auggie Belmont, Peggy Long and some others and picked their brains to get some of the stuff he used in the book. His methods are by and large as outdated as letting a barber pull teeth."

" RAW NEVER got so much as a green ribbon in AKC competition. He was a writer and salesman not a dog man. Before he wrote Water Dog, he closeted himself on Long Island with Augie and Lousie Belmont and a bunch of other savvy dog folks and picked their brains." For those who don't know, a green ribbon refers to a Judges' Award of Merit (JAM) in the field trial community. It is a recognition that the dog did some recognizable work, but not good enough to place. It gets the dog not one step closer to a FC or AFC title, and Wolters never got one." So, that he may have run dogs in field trials, without more, is meaningless. You have a 6 month old AKC retriever? You can run them too.

I understand that RAW was one of the founders of NAHRA and that, apparently, came about because AKC did not want a gun dog stake in field trials (vis-a-vis hunt tests). However, I don't know how many tests he ever ran. From what I could find, he apparently did judge NAHRA tests some, but I don't know if that was beginning dogs or finished dogs.

RAW's first books came along when the average hunter was looking for some guidance. Heck, I've got two of his books that I bought some 35 years ago, 3 if you count the history book, I guess. The problem is that they were not very good. Unfortunately, too, his books started showing up around the same time as a really good book, "Training Retrievers to Handle" by D.L. and Ann Walters. Unfortunate name confusion. Since RAW's books seeming covered all of training, guess who got the emphasis? But, as stated above, much of what he says is about as outdated as asking a barber to pull teeth.

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