New to site with a Lab. Early Training any insight??
Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 8:52 am
I am young (23) and new to the world of gun dogs. I am an avid outdoorsman and am involved in all things outdoors. I am from south-wester Pennsylvania. I archery hunt, flyfish, upland, bear, basically everything.
This is my first dog and she is wonderful. A mild tempermant and a huge desire to hunt and please is helping me keep my entusiasm. Her name is Lilly-May. The training is going well. Lilly is 5 months old and 42 lbs. I will add new pictures soon. She just finished her shots yesterday.The vet commented on her build and what shape she is in. He also said she had great genetics.
I started with all of the obedience commands and she mastered them. She was housebroke from day one. She does pet tricks and now is starting to really take off with hunting training.I basically started playing fetch with some frozen birds after she mastered obedience. Now i hide her face and throw the birds and make her use her nose to find them. I started in high weeds but now throw them in brush piles and jaggers among others. She finds it every time. I have watched this game go from hide and seek to now where she sounds like a vaccum trying to get the scent and vigorously searching to find it. I also now see when we are on our walks/training she checks out every brush pile and structure. She now responds to "find the bird" and "hunt em up" by looking at me and putting her nose to the ground and getting birdy. She also is following hand signals somewhat and is not affraid to go into jaggers, jump ditches, go through water or high weeds also. She is also branching off from the trail we walk on and going in zig zags to check out the scents. I bought a foam grouse from Doken and everytime I use it for fetch i repeat BIRD. Now it is hard to turn her off from wanting to find it. I almost cant play fetch with it in the house now. I never added scent to it yet.
I am going to now start planting the "birds" before we walk and see if she can find them. I am going to take her to a buddies farm and plant some live quail and try to get her on some ringneck as well. I am planning on walking through some places i know there were a lot of grouse and hope she might sniff one up. I also hope to get her around an older dog to try to get her to go out in front when in tall grass.
Any insight on my training and any suggestions will be appreciated. It is awsome to slow things down and watch how much she is actually taking in and learning. Thanks for the help guys!! Dont be affraid to tell me if i am doing something wrong. I now need to get my wife to stop with the reindeer horns.Poor Dog
This is my first dog and she is wonderful. A mild tempermant and a huge desire to hunt and please is helping me keep my entusiasm. Her name is Lilly-May. The training is going well. Lilly is 5 months old and 42 lbs. I will add new pictures soon. She just finished her shots yesterday.The vet commented on her build and what shape she is in. He also said she had great genetics.
I started with all of the obedience commands and she mastered them. She was housebroke from day one. She does pet tricks and now is starting to really take off with hunting training.I basically started playing fetch with some frozen birds after she mastered obedience. Now i hide her face and throw the birds and make her use her nose to find them. I started in high weeds but now throw them in brush piles and jaggers among others. She finds it every time. I have watched this game go from hide and seek to now where she sounds like a vaccum trying to get the scent and vigorously searching to find it. I also now see when we are on our walks/training she checks out every brush pile and structure. She now responds to "find the bird" and "hunt em up" by looking at me and putting her nose to the ground and getting birdy. She also is following hand signals somewhat and is not affraid to go into jaggers, jump ditches, go through water or high weeds also. She is also branching off from the trail we walk on and going in zig zags to check out the scents. I bought a foam grouse from Doken and everytime I use it for fetch i repeat BIRD. Now it is hard to turn her off from wanting to find it. I almost cant play fetch with it in the house now. I never added scent to it yet.
I am going to now start planting the "birds" before we walk and see if she can find them. I am going to take her to a buddies farm and plant some live quail and try to get her on some ringneck as well. I am planning on walking through some places i know there were a lot of grouse and hope she might sniff one up. I also hope to get her around an older dog to try to get her to go out in front when in tall grass.
Any insight on my training and any suggestions will be appreciated. It is awsome to slow things down and watch how much she is actually taking in and learning. Thanks for the help guys!! Dont be affraid to tell me if i am doing something wrong. I now need to get my wife to stop with the reindeer horns.Poor Dog