Phillips Gun Dogs LLC

Chad trained my dog when she was just under 6 months old for the full 4-6 weeks. She’s over a year old now. I had her out this week hunting and she did everything I could ever have asked. Was very impressed for her first time with wild birds. I’ve had her back to chads several times when we go on vacation for a tune up to keep her on birds throughout the year. Both the training and the tune ups were instrumental to how she hunted this past week. If you’re looking for a magician as it looks like some people are in the reviews, look elsewhere. If you’re looking for someone who will get your dog in the best shape mentally and physically to do their job as a bird dog, look no further. Chad is the man!

I would not recommend Phillips gun dogs. I took my 2 yr old GWP to Chad to work on retrieving. The dog has hunted 2 seasons already and struggles to retrieve pheasant. He will retrieve quail or other smaller birds half-heartedly but struggles with pheasant. I explained this to Chad when we talked prior to me bringing him out and also told him that he does a good job with bumpers and will reliably retrieve them to hand, so it seems to be an issue with birds, specifically pheasant. I also mentioned that he tends to crowd birds a little and as a result bumps birds occasionally but that i was seeing improvement towards the end of the last hunting season. Chad sounded confident he could help and told me that the formal retrieve typically takes 4-6 weeks. After i dropped him off i waited 2 weeks and since i had not heard anything I tried to call for an update. Chad texted back that he would prefer a text. So i texted and got a short reply that basically just said yes we are working on retrieving. I then waited another two weeks and decided to reach out again. I got a similar short response. I think at this point we are at 4 weeks and i asked for a little more of an update. He responded that they had just put him on the bench for the formal retrieve training. This was confusing to me as I was lead to believe this was the plan all along, so I was unsure why it was just now starting at 4 weeks. This went on about the same with me reaching out every two weeks until finally at 11 weeks i told chad we needed to talk. We chatted on the phone on that saturday and I told him that i wanted to reevaluate how things would proceed. On that monday he sent me a video of him throwing a dead pheasant in his yard for my dog to reluctantly pick up and bring to him. I immediately told him that i wanted to pick my dog up because i was very disappointed that after 11 weeks i could see no progress. Chad was polite when i picked my dog up and offered several excuses as to why there was no progress. Even claiming that he had originally worked on steadiness for a week (which I do not believe based on how my dog acted when I took him out to evaluate once I had him home) He opted not to charge me for the last couple weeks as i had already paid $2k for the first 8 weeks. The first thing i- noticed was how out of shape my dog was, weighing him the first night i found he had gained 8-10 lbs and was pretty out of shape, which i took as an indication he had been basically sitting in a kennel for 11 weeks. I took two full weeks, taking him out every day to find birds and try to get back in shape. Then took him for a long weekend in South Dakota to chase grouse. After the two weeks of assessing him daily looking for any improvement i feel confident in saying that Chad did not hold up his end and did not spend much time working with my dog for whatever reason. I took the time to text all this to Chad prior to leaving this review and all i got was a lot of excuses. I am out 11 weeks with my dog and $2000. I would advise anyone considering taking a dog to Phillips to do your research, I see there have been several very good reviews which makes me wonder why my experience was so bad. Also, I should add that Chad did offer to have me bring my dog back and he would finish the job at no extra charge but at this point I do not trust him with my dog. In the end I feel I have been cheated out of 11 weeks with my dog and $2k. Tadd Jurgens