Do we train our pup's to early??

[GnM]

This topic may be in the wrong board as it is more of a discussion but I will post it here. I just finished reading an article in Pointing Dog Journal about " Natural Ability vs. Trained Ability", very good article as most of Mr. Johnson's are. In the article he quotes two famous dog trainers Bob Whele and Delmar Smith. According to them the first year of a dogs life should be nothing but finding/hunting birds. Delmar Smith said "Except for having him come to his name, knowing the meaning of the word, NO and Kenneling when ordered, Pup needs no other training the first year." So do we as a "right now" society expect to much out of our first year dogs?

I have never been around nor discussed in great lengths training with a professional trainer but do they feel a rush with training dogs due to owners wanting the dog now and not waiting a year to start training? Should backyard trainers even worry about whoa training etc with their new pups?

Me personally have tried to get my dogs out in the field as much as possible, do not due as much in the summer due to rattlesnakes. I use pigeons and work on whoa with my dog. The only commands I use with my dog right now are whoa, and come in. Should I not be doing any yard work until he turnes one? My pup is around 13 months old right now.

Would love to here some advice from the pro's on this topic.

Thanks,
GnM

[blunder]

IMHO of course, but it isn't a matter of should we train at any particular age but how should we train at that age.
Dogs tend to develop cognitive skills at a predictable rate, and (also IMHO) it is foolish not to take advantage of these development plateaus.
I start my pups with ENS (early neurological stimulation) at 3 days. Next I start introductions at 5 weeks (birds, water, gunfire) so that the pup will have no memory of being afraid of them. Fear memory is said to develop during their 11th week. From 12 weeks until puberty the pups motivation are food and praise so take advantage of this and cookie train and bond with your pup. Expect to see puberty between 5 & 7 months, and then is when a formal basics program should begin. The main goal with a young pup is birds-birds-birds, (or rabbits :roll: ), you want that pup dreaming about birds

first bird @ 5 weeks

[romeo212000]

blunder pretty much hit the nail on the head. I had my pup on birds at 11 weeks but it was all fun until 7 months. The only things I really stressed where the basics such has "Here" and "Kennel". I let my dog chase birds all she wanted. I had her on birds weekly pretty much and even did some woah training around 6 or 7 months but other than that I pretty much let th trainer I sent her to handle all else. I sent her away at 7 months and he took her for 4 months. He started the formal woah breaking and more serious aspect of training. The last 6 weeks she was there he focused on force fetch and I picked her up right before her first birthday. Some people think a dog is fully trained when you send a dog to a trainer. That's not true. I have spent the last few weeks building on the foundation he layed for her using the tools he put in her. I have only been working her on birds for 2 weeks because she is just coming off of an injury but using what the trainer taught both of us she has gotten better every time. I personally think she is right where she needs to be for her age. Some people say do not do any training with a dog before a year. I say Bull Hockey. Training can be accomplished with a dog at the ages I mention if it is done correctly.

[kninebirddog]

i see people trying to make a adult dog out of a pup

With pups and young dogs...guiding them into what you what is a good thing but the KEY is making the experience fun where they learn and it is exciting

as long as they look forward to being with you and what is going on...then when they get older your just needing to buff up a diamond in the rough

[prairiefirepointers]

I agree, birds, birds and more birds. We introduce pups to a wing on a fishing rod at 5 weeks of age, at 7 weeks we put quail in a trap and see what they do. Usually, they Point, hopscotch around and go bonkers. I feel that if a pup shows interest in learning, go for it. I always teach 'Here' formaly at about 4 months, and get them used to dragging a leash or checkcord (even though I hate checkcords). A neat trick I learned by accident that has paid dividends with this litter is, I take my Lab (who loves to catch frisbees as much as retrieving ducks) and I go out in full view of the puppy pen. I proceed to throw the 'flippy flopper' for him. The puppies see him running after it and catching it and retreiving. THEY GO NUTS. Then after they see me doing this for about a week. I let one out and leave the frisbee in plain view outside the pen. ALMOST ALWAYS, pup snatches up the frisbee and takes off. I go and take it away and pitch it.. they go and get it. Works every time. I rambled a little off the path of the topic, but if it helps someone GREAT.
The point is puppies are a sponge for learning at this age, and if they show interest I go for it. If not, be patient every pup has its own pace. BLUNDER's right, much much easier to take advantage early than wait till later in their development.

[Sharon]

IMHO of course, but it isn't a matter of should we train at any particular age but how should we train at that age.
Dogs tend to develop cognitive skills at a predictable rate, and (also IMHO) it is foolish not to take advantage of these development plateaus.
I start my pups with ENS (early neurological stimulation) at 3 days. Next I start introductions at 5 weeks (birds, water, gunfire) so that the pup will have no memory of being afraid of them. Fear memory is said to develop during their 11th week. From 12 weeks until puberty the pups motivation are food and praise so take advantage of this and cookie train and bond with your pup. Expect to see puberty between 5 & 7 months, and then is when a formal basics program should begin. The main goal with a young pup is birds-birds-birds, (or rabbits :roll: ), you want that pup dreaming about birds

first bird @ 5 weeks

You're the first person i've read about using "early neurological stimulation" exercisises. I do that too. i think it makes a big difference.

[gonehuntin']

I think there's no such thing as developing a pup to early, but if we're talking pointing dogs, we sure can train them too early. A retriever's a different animal. Many are started at four months now. With a pointing dog though, I let them develop with my help until I see a beligerance developing in them, usually at about eight months, then start training them then.

Early on, they get a ton of birds in launchers, long walks in fields, water work, and in general exposure to everything. They learn NO, HERE, and KENNEL from a very young age. That's it.

[ezzy333]

I think it depends on what you are aiming for with a pup. Any pup that learns independance, learns where to hunt, learns what other animals and birds are, needs to be out and about but I donb't need to be instructing him in anything pertaining to the field till it has one season under its belt. There is more than enough for the pup to learn without us confusing it during these young periods. The training I do is a little of the manners type training such as house breaking, crate training, kenneling, traveling in a vehicloe, come, stacking, and maybe some heal or at least leash training. The pups get introduced to birds but do not get alot of bird exposure after that introduction till they are older.

If you want a dog thar is perfect or mechanical I think you can start them early. If you want an independent well balanced dog that has figured out what and where to hunt then yes, most people start them way too early. Their natural abiloity will take care of most of the hunting whiloe we should be training the manners that bring them to the standard you want so you can live with them. Their second year is soon enough to get serious with them.

Ezzy

[RayGubernat]

I have come to realize that we make impressions on our dogs and they learn things from us and interactions with us...whether we intend it or not. So, in effect, we are teaching them things all the time.

So it is not about whether we should "teach" the dog or not but rather "what" we should be conveying to the pup and yongster in terms of concepts we wish them to grasp and and "how" we should be introducing those concepts to the youngster, so that they can learn the concept quickly easily and while maintaining and encouraging a positive attitude in the pup.

When you pick up a five week old puppy and when it clomps down on your finger with those needle-like baby teeth and draws blood, you teach the pup that biting you on the finger is something that displeases you... I don't care whom you are...that puppy will get the message that you ain't a happy camper...I guarantee it.

There are lots of ways to get from here to there with a dog. Lots of them work fine.

Some might even be better than others, for some poeple and some dogs under some circumstances, but that takes a while to figure out, if you ever really do.

The ace in the hole that we, as trainers have, is that the breeding in our dogs today is the result of literally centuries of tweaking, fine tuning and culling and is often truly superb. The genetic talents in the well bred sporting dog can often allow many, many different training approaches to work just fine.

Nothing makes a trainer look better or a training method look more successful than a truly gifted and talented dog.

RayG

[Rick Hall]

This topic may be in the wrong board as it is more of a discussion but I will post it here. I just finished reading an article in Pointing Dog Journal about " Natural Ability vs. Trained Ability", very good article as most of Mr. Johnson's are. In the article he quotes two famous dog trainers Bob Whele and Delmar Smith. According to them the first year of a dogs life should be nothing but finding/hunting birds. Delmar Smith said "Except for having him come to his name, knowing the meaning of the word, NO and Kenneling when ordered, Pup needs no other training the first year." So do we as a "right now" society expect to much out of our first year dogs?

I have never been around nor discussed in great lengths training with a professional trainer but do they feel a rush with training dogs due to owners wanting the dog now and not waiting a year to start training? Should backyard trainers even worry about whoa training etc with their new pups?

Much of our training dogma is rooted in a time when there wasn't much point in putting a lot of effort in a young pup that had a good chance of dying before its first birthday from something we now vaccinate for. And the great majority of it comes from professional trainers needing methods that dealt with whatever bad habits came through the gate as expediently as possible: largely breaking tactics that might well break a young pup's spirit.

Theirs was/is a much different situation than that of the "backyard trainer" with the luxury of bringing a young pup on from scratch and the opportunity to mold good habits, while avoiding the development of bad ones that will later require breaking. Unfortunately, our reliance on professional expertise has stunted the sales of training guides geared toward the "backyard trainers" situation. Which has sometimes led to anxious amateurs attempting to apply high pressure tactics designed for big dogs to little ones - and lending credence to the "let puppies be puppies" school of thought.

In the '70s, when I got serious about having a better trained dog than those of my early bird hunting mentors (who gunned over "pointing" dogs so close working that there'd still be shooting when they failed to live up to that name), I read a stack of training tomes and was blessed to find serious amateur trainer, George Bird Evans', "Troubles With Bird Dogs," which seemed to best fit my situation. Evans brought his own pups on, one at a time from scratch, and was of the "treat puppies like puppies" school of thought suggesting puppy-sized lessons, like early "whoa" at feeding time and such, that later translated readily to good field manners without serious breaking tactics.

That route of "treating puppies like puppies" and nurturing them as one might nurture a child, rather than waiting for boot camp to straighten them out, has worked well for both my pointing and retriever pups. And it takes no special genius to preserve the independent search big-going pointing dog fanciers so desire by compartmentalizing handler oriented training from independent search field time. (Or, perhaps, to tuck a too-big-for-comfort pup in some afield by incorporating the two.)

[blunder]

IMHO of course, but it isn't a matter of should we train at any particular age but how should we train at that age.
Dogs tend to develop cognitive skills at a predictable rate, and (also IMHO) it is foolish not to take advantage of these development plateaus.
I start my pups with ENS (early neurological stimulation) at 3 days. Next I start introductions at 5 weeks (birds, water, gunfire) so that the pup will have no memory of being afraid of them. Fear memory is said to develop during their 11th week. From 12 weeks until puberty the pups motivation are food and praise so take advantage of this and cookie train and bond with your pup. Expect to see puberty between 5 & 7 months, and then is when a formal basics program should begin. The main goal with a young pup is birds-birds-birds, (or rabbits :roll: ), you want that pup dreaming about birds


You're the first person I've read about using "early neurological stimulation" exercisises. I do that too. i think it makes a big difference.

It's to simple to do not to.
It is my observation tho' that most stop reading Dr Battaglia's article about ENS never realizing that there are important things AFTER the little exercises.

[remmy]

Where can I get a copy of this ENS article?

[remmy]

Nevermind...I found it.

http://www.breedingbetterdogs.com/achiever.html