Building a Foundation

[Casper]

With your young pups what is your foundation like. How do you go about developing your new pup into the hardcore bird hunter you are dreaming about. Please give as detailed a description as you can from the day you bring pup home until the dog reaches an age of say 2 years. What do you do with pup from day to day? Everyone is different in how they bring a pup along so please give your own description instead of agreeing with another poster.

I would especially like to hear from professional trainers who take in young dogs for training. Give descriptions of things that the puppy owner should have done and shouldn't have done and how you have altered your "typical" foundation to suit these dogs in order to achieve the best results.

I'd appreciate your input

[Brushbustin Sporting Dogs]

Interesting question. I subject a young puppy to as much as possible from the time I bring them home or there old enough. I will walk them with older dogs when there 12 weeks old so there use to others from the get go and are use to running through grass etc etc. They spend time on the chain gang and a young age and this teaches a dog ALOT people don't really understand how something so simple can be so great for a dog. I really do almost no training until there atleast 15 months. A pup thats been through all this simple stuff and pointed a few birds off a rope is usually a joy to work with as far as basic odendience on into the starting process of breaking them by this point. This is my plan, though not overly indepth, it has worked well on the last two pups I have raised up. They learn easy now that I'm ready to teach them just because they have been through so much.

Was that what you were looking for...???

[mudhunter]

1st socialize the puppy! Take it around and get it used to all sorts of people and stuff going on around them. Get it used to running in the field or woods and make sure its listening. Get it used to stuff it will need later on in training, always put an ecollar on them from the time the are big enough that the collar doesn't fall off (I don't use it yet). I let them drag a check cord around. Get it used to sitting in a dog box for awhile or a stakeout if you expect them to be on it later in life. I will try to get the dog into wild birds but avoid pen raised birds unless on a check cord. Really I don't think much bird work is needed until you are ready to start breaking the dog. Just my opinion.