Christmas gifts come in all sorts of ways - sometimes even standing on four legs.
"I don't have any of the numbers on it, but we did have a small increase in adoptions. We definitely had an increase," Jessie Caldwell, the lead adoption counselor at McKamey Animal Center in Chattanooga, said about the number of dogs taken from the center for Christmas gifts this year.
"We had a big adoption event, too, right around Christmas with reduced prices, and that usually helps a lot," she added.
Of course, training one's dog has to follow. Time, skill and patience are required for that.
"Training a dog cannot start too soon," said Melissa Walthour, the owner of Savage River Kennels in the Mountain Cove Farms area of Chickamauga, Ga. "I start training my puppies when they are two days old. They don't have their eyes open. If a client wants to bring me a puppy, I will start at any age."
Her interest in dog training started when she was in the eighth grade, and she has been a professional trainer for 21 years.
"I limit it to taking in eight new trainees each month. We can accommodate 40 dogs at one time," said Walthour, who has three employees who help with the 30 days of basic training for each. "That teaches them manners, and then from there we build. We have to have that 30 days of groundwork and then build from there."
The cost for training is $750 for 30 days.
She said there is always a reluctance to provide a total cost or time to train a dog, in any category, because there are so many variables such as the type of dog and the dog's interests.
"The majority of the work that I do is [helping create] very well-behaved pets," Walthour said. "I train them to the point of what it would it take for them to live in my home."
Teaching dogs to hunt and retrieve birds is the second-most requested training she provides.
"Most clients here want a dog that can hunt birds," she said.
"First we would start with manners and behavior, period. They have to behave before they can get out there in the field with a gun. Then we would work on retrieval work. So they have to learn how to go get something and bring it back. We would work on marking a bird, which would be like watching in the sky for a bird."
Teaching a dog to remain calm when a gun fires and wait until the hunter releases it to fetch the bird takes time and effort, the trainer noted.
Next in demand is training dogs to be companions or service animals. Teaching a dog to hunt deer is lower on the request scale.
Walthour said she does not teach a dog to run a deer but to find one that has been wounded or killed by a hunter. The dogs are not taught to smell the deer itself but to find them by smelling blood.
"The only reason that they are going to be used to find a deer is usually the hunter has shot a deer, and they can't locate it," she said. "Then you would bring out the dogs that can track that blood."
Deer hunting with dogs is allowed in Georgia with restrictions. In Tennessee a deer hunter cannot be in possession of a gun and a dog at the same time.
"We don't allow hunting with dogs," said Major C.J. Jaynes with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. "If that deer hunter is in the process of recovering a deer and he does not have a gun, has a dog on a leash and he has permission to be on the property that he is on, then, yes, they can use a dog."
Jaynes added that the hunter is required to call a TWRA regional office to say he or she will be using a dog to locate a downed deer.
Dog Training In Your Home is a franchise-type company based in Charlotte, N.C., that trains a dog in the location where it will spend 95 percent of its time. The company has 20 offices in Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
Sally Hummel is the owner of the Chattanooga and Knoxville offices.
"What we do is evaluate the dog prior to doing training, and once we've done the completed evaluation, then I can make a recommendation based on the owner's goals," said Hummel, a dog trainer since 1983. "We work on behavior modification, and we work on teaching the dog commands and giving the owner some better control with their dog to understand how that dog communicates so they can get some results they want."
Each lesson is about an hour long, and then the owner is given homework to perform with the animal.
Contact Gary Petty at sports@timesfreepress.com.