Retriever training in the city

[tehquickness]

I am looking at getting a dog and want to see if I can teach it to retrieve. However, I live deep in the city (Dallas). So I think that pretty much rules out live birds, or even dead birds on a regular basis. The dog would probably have no problem learning basic obedience and retrieving dummies. However, I would guess that it would have problems handling real birds and be gun shy as well right?

I think I would be looked down upon firing .22 blanks and throw dead birds around at the local dog park.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

[ezzy333]

Welcome aboard. If you decide to get a Lab or some other retriever it won't be the first one raised in the city. However, it will be up to you to get the pup out to where you can train. I am assuming you can drive to the country occasionally to do some field work and that is all it would take along with your yard work to get the pup pretty well trained to birds and guns. But most of that won't take place till the pup is nearing a year old. Hope you find something you like and it all works out for you. And make sure you ask questions as they come up so we all can help.

Ezzy

[FLocker]

In my experience, retrievers are much easier to train primarily in the city than pointers.

[Kyle Wintersteen]

I have an urban gundog in Arlington, VA, a mile outside D.C. I second Ezzy's advice; you'll be fine.

Another tip: I get around leashing laws by leaving a long check cord on the dog when I'm doing dummy drills within the city limits. Some animal control officers can even be convinced that an e-collar counts a leash.

[Sharon]

Training in the city can be done. i live in a big city. I keep my pigeons in the garage and drive out to a bit of private land on which to train. ( Have permission of course.)

I lived in a apt. once and kept my quail on the balcony.

Every once in a while one would escape into the parking lot.

The apt. neighbors would get all excited thinking they were seeing a rare bird.

I of course acted surprised too.

[crackerd]

Sharon, apropos the Beltway confines alluded to in the post above yours, my buddy Chip Schleider
might lend a helping hand: http://www.amazon.com/Urban-Gun-Dogs-Tr ... 1594110506
Dunno if a Toronto edition is on tap, though

MG

[jimmyp]

ive done alot of my training in an urban setting since I got my lab while i was attending college. to get around the use of .22 blanks i went to a local toy store and got myself a childrens cap gun (not as loud but sufficient for marking drills). as far as using real birds went I would do the majority of my training at a local park and would get back into an area where there weren't very many people and would just make sure who was around before I pulled the birds out of my bag. I will also agree with a previous post where you can get most of your trainng done with bumpers and then sneak out of town to use real birds.
good luck and have fun
jim

[Kory]

Not sure what part of Dallas you are in but there is a Training Lease up in Anna which is not too far out of town where there are birds and live fire (shotgun) is allowed. If you need any info let me know and I can get it for you and it is fairly priced.

Kory

[Kyle Wintersteen]

I received an interesting note from my apartment's management company that relates to this topic. It seems they've received complaints that a man with a brown and white dog is disobeying the city's mandatory leashing law. Dunno who that could be ... my dog's liver and white