About the Trainer

Training Gun Dogs for the Foot Hunter!!

Hunting upland birds has been a passion and major part of Bill Dillon’s life for close to fifty years and he has owned and trained upland sporting dogs for forty years. Kathy and Bill own Plum Creek Kennels, owning and breeding the Epagneul Breton, or French Brittanys, since 1990. They also own and operate Big Spur Lodge, a wild pheasant hunting lodge in South Dakota and are seasoned and renowned trainers of all breeds of sporting dogs.

The Dillons have done TV shows on the Outdoor channel with Dave Gruber and Fred Ramsey on pheasant and prairie grouse and French Brittanys and on the Sportsman Channel with Harley Jackson as well as having a new show in 2011 on the American Gun Dog show airing on the Sportsmans Channel. They also write articles which are regularly published that focus on basic common sense approaches in the training and raising of shooting dogs.
Bill began participating in the French F.C.I. field trial events in 2003 and was the first American to put a title on a dog in

France and has been participating, winning and putting championship titles on dogs in French field trials on an annual basis since then. He also is the first and only American to date to compete, as well as being awarded wins, in F.C.I. Euro Cup trials which are held in a different European country each year.

Now you may say that you want a hunting dog, not a trial dog. But the trials that Bill participates in in France are the closest thing to actual hunting conditions that you can find in a trial venue, that's why he participates in those trials and only in the F.C.I Trials in Europe. All those trials are held on strictly WILD birds.

All the trials are done on foot, even the judges walk. The course is a continuous course, in other words no dog is run over the same ground more than once. Where one dog ends his run, the next dog then begins. Also, dogs that range too big are penalized or disqualified. And the training must be absolutely perfect - for instance if a dog so much as lifts his foot while on point or after the flush the dog will be disqualified.

So this is a venue that allows us to take a gun dog that hunts for the foot hunter and also run in a trial without there being any
detriment to the way the dog hunts for his foot hunting owner. Our training is not specifically designed for the purpose of someone who wants to trial their dog, but if you think you may have a prospect that option is available.

In addition to the titles that we have put on our own dogs in Europe and which we regularly hunt all species of wild birds with each year, Bill has also begun competing dogs in Europe for clients.

In 2011 Bill took two dogs of clients to France to compete in the Spring Trials. The dogs were produced by Plum Creek Kennels and trained by Bill. Both were successful with wins in the trials and Lucky also qualified for his Trialer title. Both dogs are hunted extensively by their owners. One dog lives out west and hunts pheasant, chukar, grouse with his owner. The other lives on the east coast and hunts woodcock and grouse all season.

Click here to view a slideshow of France 2011.