lab question
lab question
i have a male lab that just turned 1 year old so this is his first duck season. In training he is doing great u know the basics sit stay hell doubles some blinds and working on taking a good line.and his marking is great. But the only problem is when we are hunting he does not like to sit still he wants to explore everything around him. what can i do? Is this natural behavior if anyone can help i know u guys can so thanks in advance.
Delta Outing Club
The Way Duck Hunting Was Meant To Be
The Way Duck Hunting Was Meant To Be
Labs
Cooter
Puppy Puppy Puppy...... Mine is a year and a half old she loves to explore and see all that there is to see. But when the ducks are flying her eyes are on the air. Keep talking to him and reminding him to sit,stay,or whatever your command is. Do you keep him on a leash? If not try this and he will catch on.Soon he'll be letting you know when and where the ducks are coming from. Be patient with him we were all new to this game at one time.
Puppy Puppy Puppy...... Mine is a year and a half old she loves to explore and see all that there is to see. But when the ducks are flying her eyes are on the air. Keep talking to him and reminding him to sit,stay,or whatever your command is. Do you keep him on a leash? If not try this and he will catch on.Soon he'll be letting you know when and where the ducks are coming from. Be patient with him we were all new to this game at one time.
Young Lab
Cooter-
Shoot is giving you some good advice. Be patient!! If you are lucky and he stays healthy, you'll will be hunting together for 10 + years to come. If you've got a one year old that's "doing the deed" in his first year you've got a special dog. Don't mess him up expecting too much too soon. Let him be a pup and enjoy the experiences with him.
If you played any kind of little league baseball- how would you have felt if your parents raised "holy hell" because you could not hit the ball or could not catch every flyball? At 5 or 6 years of age you probably looked pretty silly on the ball field, but you had to learn and hopefully it was a fun experience for you. It's the same principle with a pup. Give him a good foundation and make it fun. The serious work will start after this first season.
Have a great season- Skip
Shoot is giving you some good advice. Be patient!! If you are lucky and he stays healthy, you'll will be hunting together for 10 + years to come. If you've got a one year old that's "doing the deed" in his first year you've got a special dog. Don't mess him up expecting too much too soon. Let him be a pup and enjoy the experiences with him.
If you played any kind of little league baseball- how would you have felt if your parents raised "holy hell" because you could not hit the ball or could not catch every flyball? At 5 or 6 years of age you probably looked pretty silly on the ball field, but you had to learn and hopefully it was a fun experience for you. It's the same principle with a pup. Give him a good foundation and make it fun. The serious work will start after this first season.
Have a great season- Skiphelp
cooter----I would like to invite you to Southern Flight HRC. We are a group of retriever enthusiast who train on a fairly consistant basis. We meet once a month in Horn Lake. I believe we would have something for you that will help with your pup. Send me a pm if you are interested.
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goosebruce
- Duck South Addict
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Welp, the answer lies right in front of you...
In training, he's great you wrote. Training what I ask. All the basics, sit stay, hell (whut's hell anywho? hehe), doubles... yada yada yada... So if he's great in training, but he won't sit still, why aren't you training him to sit still?
Damn... you knew the answer all along. He does what you have taught and condtioned him to do. What have you taught and condtioned him to do? get out of kennel, go pee, then work, then back in kennel or house. Well, you condtioned him to not sit still! Sure, he'll eventually mature in a hunting dog that will sit for hours, but why wait for time to do what you can do with almost no effort?
LOOK for chances to train, and how they condtion your dog. Dogs are normally trained for short periods, then confined, then trained, then confined. Because we don't have all day to spend with our dogs, we have to do other things, like work, feed kids, go to ball games, or even spned time wif the wife.
Say you come home tommorrow from hunting and your wife says, pick up all that $#!+ in the yard. Reasonable request, but you wanted to get in a little training with pup. So, you hurry through it, smart off to wife, then get dog out for a hurried session before dark.... Wrong. Instead, get dog out, toss him a bumper, let him deliver bumper to you, and then make pup sit. A box, or a treestand on a pole works great for this..cause thats what he'll do when hunting. Make him sit, and you start picking crap up. WATCH cue, and toss bumper out of your pocket to dog after 2 minutes... Damn, dog thinks... I thought I was in trouble having to sit here, instead, hes gonna throw stuff for me every so often. Take bumper, send dog back to stand or place him there. Use kennel command, and soon dog will return to his stand remotely. You're condtioning dog to sit for long periods quietly with other stuff going on, working on sending him to a remote place and steadying remotely, AND picking up your yard. 6 bumpers in the yard aint much training,.... but 6 bumpers over the 90 minutes you where already out there is!
No effort on your part, good training for your dog, and you got your yard picked up and your dog got some good work sitting.
Cooking out on the grill sunday? Theres a good chance.
Read below thread where I took my dog to ball games and let him watch kids running and jumping and throwing a ball when he was a puppy. First 5 minutes, then 15, then an entire game, broke up with bumpers in the parking lot.
Nobody, not even my crazy ass, is gonna sit for 4 hours and throw 2 bumpers for their dog and do nothing else. But look for chances when you are already doing something, your dog can be there, and sit doing nothing but watching. Washing truck... sitting by the pool... you name it. If your outside, your dog could be in his place (box, treestand, an old floor mat, something he can see is his working place) and get a bumper every so often. The very skills he's learns there are the skills that will make him the difference between being a pain in the ass in a slow duck blind, and the dog everyone forgets is there until it's hammertime, the very defention of a good hunting dog! travis
In training, he's great you wrote. Training what I ask. All the basics, sit stay, hell (whut's hell anywho? hehe), doubles... yada yada yada... So if he's great in training, but he won't sit still, why aren't you training him to sit still?
Damn... you knew the answer all along. He does what you have taught and condtioned him to do. What have you taught and condtioned him to do? get out of kennel, go pee, then work, then back in kennel or house. Well, you condtioned him to not sit still! Sure, he'll eventually mature in a hunting dog that will sit for hours, but why wait for time to do what you can do with almost no effort?
LOOK for chances to train, and how they condtion your dog. Dogs are normally trained for short periods, then confined, then trained, then confined. Because we don't have all day to spend with our dogs, we have to do other things, like work, feed kids, go to ball games, or even spned time wif the wife.
Say you come home tommorrow from hunting and your wife says, pick up all that $#!+ in the yard. Reasonable request, but you wanted to get in a little training with pup. So, you hurry through it, smart off to wife, then get dog out for a hurried session before dark.... Wrong. Instead, get dog out, toss him a bumper, let him deliver bumper to you, and then make pup sit. A box, or a treestand on a pole works great for this..cause thats what he'll do when hunting. Make him sit, and you start picking crap up. WATCH cue, and toss bumper out of your pocket to dog after 2 minutes... Damn, dog thinks... I thought I was in trouble having to sit here, instead, hes gonna throw stuff for me every so often. Take bumper, send dog back to stand or place him there. Use kennel command, and soon dog will return to his stand remotely. You're condtioning dog to sit for long periods quietly with other stuff going on, working on sending him to a remote place and steadying remotely, AND picking up your yard. 6 bumpers in the yard aint much training,.... but 6 bumpers over the 90 minutes you where already out there is!
No effort on your part, good training for your dog, and you got your yard picked up and your dog got some good work sitting.
Cooking out on the grill sunday? Theres a good chance.
Read below thread where I took my dog to ball games and let him watch kids running and jumping and throwing a ball when he was a puppy. First 5 minutes, then 15, then an entire game, broke up with bumpers in the parking lot.
Nobody, not even my crazy ass, is gonna sit for 4 hours and throw 2 bumpers for their dog and do nothing else. But look for chances when you are already doing something, your dog can be there, and sit doing nothing but watching. Washing truck... sitting by the pool... you name it. If your outside, your dog could be in his place (box, treestand, an old floor mat, something he can see is his working place) and get a bumper every so often. The very skills he's learns there are the skills that will make him the difference between being a pain in the ass in a slow duck blind, and the dog everyone forgets is there until it's hammertime, the very defention of a good hunting dog! travis
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Drakeshead
- Duck South Addict
- Posts: 4587
- Joined: Sun Aug 18, 2002 3:09 pm
Another thing you might want to try is not to allow your dog to get every bumper you through. This will teach pup that not all bumpers are his to retriever. Throw a bumper, make pup sit while you go and get the bumper. Throw another bumper, go and get that one. Let your pup retrieve one out of every three to five bumpers. This will also come in handy when pup needs to honor other dogs, if you ever go hunting with someone else who too wants to take their retriever.
God Bless and happy holidays
God Bless and happy holidays
laying off
laying the dog off marks is good, I reckon.... but I wouldn't do it EVERY three to five. Rather, I want my dog to make it his life's ambition to fetch, and to think that every bird he sees is his....but only when told to do so. I would use the lay-off method when the dog screws up, as a means of correction, but if he is performing steadiness to a T, then all you did was cause him to rethink just how steady he was and not feel good about what he did.
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