I worked with a Lab trainer in the area for awhile and he specialized in test/trial dogs. He was very good at what he did and would send dogs for 300, 400, 500 yard blind retrieves. Pretty neat stuff. Stop the dog at 300 yards to cast him over 100 yards then back. Impressive. But, all this got me to wondering about what a typical HUNTER expects from a trainer?
In my experience, if I were a retriever guy and sent a dog to the trainer, if I got the dog back trained for retrieves at 100 yards, blind and marked, and sharp on hand signals at that range, I think I'd be happy. And I wouldn't mind if the dog moved over about ten foot to skirt the bank of a pond instead of taking the line straight through the water.Does the typical HUNTER expect his hunting dog to come out trained to trial/test levels or are they not so demanding and more willing to accept dogs with training like what I described in this second paragraph?
Our family dog is a working Malinois that was fixed when we found out she had hip displaysia. She's still one driven sonofagun, though. She'll sit by my side, watch birds come in, quivering, stay through the shot then break out after the birds on command. I can stop her and send her in different directions and she'll even do blind retrieves to a certain extent. This is all without formal training, just playing fetch with her in the yard and directing her to balls she can't find in the high grass. But, while I'm much more of an upland guy, I don't believe I've ever pushed her to 100 yards. It just makes 500 yards seem a kind of extreme.
