Question about obedience..

[deltacotton]

My new pup is just a little over 12 weeks old. I have been reading Robert Milner's A Back to Basics Approach Retriever Training. I have probably read this book twice now. What I am not sure of is where this pup should be in the ways of commands. I have got him where he can sit, stay for a little bit, lay down, and he is house broken. What I don't know is if I should be working on heel and also start working on retrieving. Now I just really spend lots of time with him and take him on walks and let him swim a little bit. Milner says that most obedience should not take place till the pup is six months old. I am not working this dog to be a trial dog but I guess he could be his dad is The Man in Black (Cash) from Tupelo and Grandad is Ebonstar Lean Mack and Mother is Anna K.

Can anyone tell me what I should be working on with him for the until he reaches 6 months? I would greatly appreciate any help.
Thanks,
Mike

[Drakeshead]

Put that book down and get Robert Milner's book "Retriever Training for the Duck Hunter" or Jerome B. Robinson's book "Training the Hunting Retriever". I did not care too much for Milner's "Back To Basics" at all.

Right now just the basics: sit, stay, heel (obedience). Keep it fun as your pup is a pup.

Travis will jump in here soon.

[skuna]

I have a question. Do you have an old table or chair around the house that has an uneven leg? If so take that book (back to the basics) and stick it under the shrt leg because that is about the only thing it is good for. The first trianing book I ever read was Milner's Back to the Basics. I thought it was great. I think I even put a post on hear about it. Milner waste too much time talking about British and American dogs. My advice would be not to buy into all of Milners crap. I also have his first book and even though it is a little old I still learned a good bit from it. I'm still new at this stuff myself but can honestly say that Back to the Basics is not the route I wanted to go. I got ten minute retriever also and it has a lot of helpful stuff in it too. As far as obedience, I would keep everything fun and short. A lot of fun retrieves and let pup be a pup for a while. I started formal obedience with my dog at about 4 to 5 months so that he would be solid on sit and stay by the time I started to ff around 7 months. Just my 2cents. Skuna

[deltacotton]

Which route should I go then?

[Dutch Dog]

Throw all that milner stuff away and get yourself a good old fashioned "water dog" book or if you really aint interested in the retriever part of it and just obedience/house manners etc get the book called "family dog". Both of these are in the same family of books by Richard Wolters. They have even came out with some more advanced videos now to complement water dog called "top dog I" and "top dog II". I can also tell you that in the retriever genre that Lardy has been said to have the best stuff our there bar none, but it is above most beginners heads...I don't know what level you are at, if you have ever trained a dog before or not, but only you truly know if you could be considered a beginner, intermediate, or advanced dog trainer. Hope this helps.

[tennduckdog]

Let your pup have fun! He's only 12 weeks so the most important thing that you can do right now is make sure he is socialized. Take him to the park, let kids pet him, introduce him to other dogs (use caution), take him for rides in the car/boat. Whatever you can intro him to now will benifit him later, but don't jump into anything and make sure he has a good experience with everything. As far as training goes you should approach it as a game at this time. No pressure, just show him what you want and praise him for doing the right thing, make sure not to make it boring so keep it short. At his age you don't formalize any of the commands, you just show him what to do and you have plenty of time to formalize the commands when he is a little bit older (6-8 months old). Things that I would be working on would be HERE, SIT, walking on a lead, intro to birds, intro to water and intro to gun (use caution again). When I teach a pup sit and here I like to teach them in kind of a three part process. First I teach them by using a verbal command along with showing them what to do like pushing their butt down, once they understand that I give them a verbal command and hand gesture like a verbal SIT with my hand out, Finally I give them a whistle command along with a hand gesture like PEEP with hand out. Its easy stuff and it gets the puppy thinking. Also, I wouldn't use the stay command after you have formalized the sit command later on, sit means sit and stay until I tell you to do something else. Its fun stuff. I wish I had a 12 week old pup to work with right now! As far as the Milner book goes, if it will accomplish your goals and you don't plan to FF and CC your dog go for it. If you want to go with FF and CC then I would suggest the Evan Graham series of books, he does a good job with basics all the way through advanced stuff and has the best and most complete force training book I have ever read.
Good Luck
Bryan

[goosebruce]

Trash that milner book, pronto. Ever notice how nobody ever talks bout their finished dog trained 'milner' style, or 'brit' style. Lots of people with puppies talking that stuff, but nobody with a big dog. Its not a coiencdence. Brit dog training is better just like brit dental care is... stay away from both.

Heres a post of puppy stuff from a while back. It'll keep you busy till you get some new reading material. http://www.ducksouth.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=51449&highlight=#51449 travis

[gator]

Brit dog training is better just like brit dental care is... stay away from both.

CUT!!!!!! THAT'S A WRAP EVERYONE!!!! dude, i'm coming your way for the week...you gonna be around in the afternoons? gator

[dukdawgn]

dude fell down many years ago, musta been drunk when he woke up, cause #2 smelled closer to the real #2, nowhere in the area of being the sequel to the first.... website spouts out much more of the #2's smell. funny how apparently one dude has all the answers, yet 200,000 handlers prove the theory wrong on a weekly basis....

[deltacotton]

Thanks everyone. I will most likely use waterdog I suppose. I would like to use the Lardy series but I am a little gun shy on the technical stuff. I have been raised with hunting labs on my farm since I was a young boy. However we didn't train them we would always send them off. We worked them but that is after the fact they had been taught by someone else. I wouldn't say I was so much a beginner but I am no t going to say I know what I am doing when it comes to force fetching and other training methods.

Tennduckdog I see you are in Collierville..I just moved to Bailey Station a few months ago. I work in Memphis for the major cotton merchant. If you are ever out working your dog I would love to bring this little guy out to let him see a reall working dog.

[NOHERE]

WATER DOG IS THE WAY TO GO, IT AINT TOO EARLY TO FOR THESE COMANDS YOUR ASKING ABOUT, THE ONLY THING THAT HOLDS DOGS BACK FROM LEARNING IS THE TRAINER. BUT AS YOU KNOW, IT DONT HAPPEN IN ONE WEEK, SLOW AND STEADY ON THE PUPS.

[Meeka]

Has anyone else read Smartworks by Evan Graham. I think here is a link to Gundogsupply for the book. Anyone else like it?

[Chuckle12]

I just got the whole SmartWorks/SmartFetch series and it seems to be pretty good.

[Double R 2]

Here's a list Fred Riley once provided. I bolded the one's I thought appropriate for a 3 month old pup. Keep the dog interested and happy and don't try to master it all too soon. If you have him sitting and coming, no reason not to have started incorporating the whistle. And my favorite - if you don't have kids to play with the dog, borrow some!

BASICS FOR RETREIVER PUPS

1. HERE
2. COME
3. HEEL
4. HERE – FRONT FINISH
5. NO
6. LEASH
7. KENNEL
8. SIT WHISTLE
9. COME IN WHISTLE
10. DOWN
11. SHAKE
12. SOCIALIZATION - LAWN MOWERS, ATVs, GARBAGE CANS, LIVESTOCK, CHILDREN, WASHING MACHINES, ALL KINDS OF NEW SOUNDS. EVERYTHING, YOU GET THE PICTURE.
13. INTRODUCE BOATS AND MOTORS
14. INTRODUCE BOAT RAMPS AND PIERS
15. DUMMY COLLAR
16. INTRO TO GUNFIRE IN FIELD AND ON LINE
17. HAPPY BUMPERS
18. INTRODUCE DECOYS
19. RETIEVE – R – TRAINER
20. O.K. OR RELEASE COMMAND
21. INTRODUCE WATER RETIEVES
22. INTRODUCE DECOYS IN WATER
23. BIRDS – LIVE AND DEAD
24. FUN RETRIEVES
25. INTRODUCE COVER - LAND AND WATER
26. DOUBLES
27. DIVERSIONS

[/b]

[B3]

Smartworks is first rate- well worth the 25 bucks. Is the same program basically as Lardy's which costs around 300 to get the tapes. Lardy has much more detail but smartworks is great for helping you understand what you are doing.