Gun Dog Forum

Playing with a new 9-week old puppy is SO much fun! Training......that falls more into the categories of both fun AND work. I've commented before that training scenarios don't always go as planned. Today, I actually made a great training decision - to NOT take puppy with me to the NSTRA training day I had arranged with a couple buddies. Of course I wanted to show off my future brilliant hunting dog, but too many things I couldn't control could also have gone wrong........other dogs not being as friendly as he might expect, pigeons or quail getting loose and scaring him, and then there's always the gun shots that accompany dogs and birds in the field. We had a great day of training and when I got home I threw a couple dead birds for pup to pick up and proudly carry around. Then I took a couple and hid them in a little higher grass in the yard and he surprised me working into the wind to find them. A good day working in the field AND a good day working in the yard! Sometimes training does go well......

Wise decision - not to mention the pup didn't have all booster shots yet - parvo and lepto are a problem around here this summer.

It can definitely be a balancing act.

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I have a pup with an exceptional nose he is just over a year old he is very steady to flush anyhows..but most of his points are 40 plus yards from the bird ...I want to start to work him on steady to wing and shot but I would like to fix this first should I let him figure it out for himself that he is pointing to far off???? or work on releasing and relocating him???? or something else perhaps