Interview with Jim Closson and Ed Frawley

Ed Frawley sits down with one of Leerburg's newest online instructors, Jim Closson. Developing Your Gun Dog Puppy is Leerburg's first course or video geared toward the hunting dog community. The goal of this course is to introduce the training methods we use for our other sport and working dogs and apply those skills to a hunting application.

Jim Closson has been professionally training dogs for 27 years. He attended Southern Oregon State College at Ashland, where he majored in Pre-Veterinary medicine. Jim was fortunate enough to study animal behavior under renowned animal behaviorist Dr. John Sullivan. He was able to interact with Dr. Sullivan’s pack of wolves & wolf hybrids along with his pack of Dingoes, thus improving his education on dominance, hierarchy positions and canine communication and Pack Leadership development.

While in college Jim recognized the need for quality dog training, training that would help dog owners eliminate their pets’ undesirable characteristics. He successfully completed a formal apprenticeship of over 1,500 hours, which included training techniques geared toward puppy imprinting, adult and puppy potty training, behavioral problem solving, Real World Obedience, Advanced Obedience, Police Service and Narcotic Detection and the European dog sport of Schutzhund. In addition to learning from several respected European and American trainers and then spending many years – and hundreds of hours – researching different training methods from around the world, Jim took the best available techniques from a variety of different trainers and combined them with his methods of training he uses today.