About me:
Been hunting ducks many years, never had a dog for that purpose but have owned labs (see my welcome post)
Have trained previous pet-only labs to sit, stay, and heel etc with the help of treats.
I've watched a few YouTube video series on the subject of retriever training and am hunting for a couple good books on the subject. The way I understand it, a program is important and so is sticking to it.
About my dog:
Moses is a 5 month old yellow lab pup. His daddy is AKC and his momma is CKC and both have excellent hunting careers. I adopted him from an elderly man who is a one-time breeder of his female and Moses is the result (along with 6 other brothers and sisters)
Moses is a very easy-going, almost subdued pup. He's lived with us for 9 days now and is very submissive to me even though I've hardly spoken a harsh word to him. If I approach him he will usually lay down and roll onto his back.
I've only really focused on basic obedience and socialization. He's learning his place in the order of our busy house and I'm working in the yard with him a couple times a day on the basics of "sit" "stay" and "here".
He doesn't really know what to think about having a lead on. When I hook him up and try to get him to walk with me, he walks slower than me and has his ears down like "what's this all about, it's kinda freakin' me out."
With that being said, if I take it easy and go at his pace, he stops when I stop, and sits when I say sit for the most part. Baby steps I suppose.
Today was really bad though.mi put him on the lead and he didn't last two minutes before he was laying on his back, not wanting to walk with me. I gave him a few tugs on the lead and some words of encouragement but he wasn't having any of it. So I took the lead off and tossed him a few bumpers and called it a day.
He will chase a ball but a friend suggested I ditch the ball and get a bumper, so I did. He prefers a canvas bumper to a knobby plastic one. Today we just played around and he would chase the bumper, pick it up and return to my general direction, very slowly. I showered him with praise and threw it again and he did the same thing, slow lazy "retrieve" but a retrieve none the less. A few couple times he ran to the bumper and picked it up but did not return...a couple times he ran to it and sniffed it but didn't really pick it up, but all in all I think it was a positive experience.
I want to be very careful not to "mess up" my dog and I want to make sure that his subdued/laid back personality is not a hindrance to his success.
Are there special techniques for more laid back pups?
What would you do if you were me? Somebody suggested I get a couple pigeons to help get his prey drive kicked into gear. This seems like a fine idea but I haven't a clue where to start with that.
Thanks in advance for your help!