Anyone have a good training tip for a 12 week old Yellow lab. (hunting waterfowl)

[Duck Hunter Dave]

Hello everyone! You guys on here have helped me with most every question I have had with guns, permits, shooting, ranges, ect..... Thanks, I am truely greatful!
So, I got my self a yellow lab at 9 weeks old, Daisy-Mae is her name and I do hope to hunt her for ducks and geese in feilds and more so, on the water.This is my first time training a dog. I have watched several youtube videos from Duck Unlimited and from various trainers. Purchased a few good videos, Read from more online sites then Id like to mention, but still, this is my first time training. She is 12 weeks today I believe she has been traing very well.
Completley house broken now and has learnd "sit", "stay", "come", ( stay is still alittle tricky, she will "stay" untill I back up about 20 feet, then gets up. I think she gets lonely!) She is retreiving very well. I will through a stick or toy out 30-40 feet and she will go after it, and bring it back to me( though she doesnt always let go every time, i figure its because she is young, and is still learning) In hopes of keeping her from being gun shy, I have been clapping 36 inch 2x4's together while she eats from time to time or while playing. She is not afraid of the loud clapping sound from the wood smacking together, She doesnt jump at the sound, and for the most part, she doesnt seem to notice, or care. I walk her from 8:00-9:30am every morning along the creek or delaware river, and again from 6:00 - 7:15 pm. Rarely will we walk the same woods twice, and try to stay off any trails so she will expreince as many hunting type areas as possiable and have fun in them each morning. She is very playful along the water, hasnt actually done any swimming yet, but has gone in up to her chest every day and seems to be having a blast.
So, I am wondering if anyone out there has trained a dog for hunting, and could let me know if I am doing anything wrong at this point, If what I have described is on point with good hunting training for a 12 week old pup, or if I far off the grid and should seek help!
Id be greatful for any suggestions or tips as to where to go from here with her training. Many thanks! Dave

[kel ruger man]

i would be careful training a dog to young. it could accually ruin it. that said, if its in the dogs blood...it could start at any age. 1st make sure it understands and listen to basic commands. nothing worse then hunting with a dog that doesnt listen, it could be dangerous for the dog not to mention it will scare away more game then you will see. i wouldnt use the dog for any real hunting until the age of 2

[bearman]

was hunting one year w/ a bunch of guys at pytumatuming , the open fields. just at surrise a guy w/ a black lab pup come over to me and said he heard i`ll be one of the 1st. guys to down a goose. only used a 10 ga., single shot. he asked me if his dog could fetch the goose. i told him of course. the dog was young. i made a suggestion, make sure the goose is dead!!! before he let the pup go. 1st flight out of the mangement area i shot a goose.the goose hit the ground hard but just as the dog got to him the goose jumped up and beat the dog bad. it was a flight goose and the wing edges are burnt back from the wind. so as a suggestion, let him put on a few lbs., and if the goose gets up shoot him in the head a 2nd. time before you let the dog go to fetch him.

[Duck Hunter Dave]

Thanks. I currently do not plan to hunt her untill the 2014 season. I do plan to bring her along during the 2012-13 seaon, but only to observe as long she has masterd obedience cammands by then.
I was wondering when I should start training her with bumpers, scenetd bumpers with feathers, retreive around decoys, spotting multi objects to retreive, ext... I have even heard of guys purchasing live dove for the pups to chase after. Any and all info is helpful. Thanks guys!

[spagluvx]

I am by no means an expert but I have trained a few labs over the years. It starts and ends with obedience training. I would start training the dog just as you have done, when they are young and before we teach them bad habits.

Obedience training is about dominance in the relationship. I am not speaking of physical dominance but the natural dominance that happens in the animal world. A few quick points:

1. Teach your dog hand and whistle based signals. They can not understand english, it is just as easy. You are off to a good start I would add the following commands to your training as you progress. Down, Sit, Stay,Go, Stop, Out, Back, Left and Right. Eventually she will loose sight of the item to be retrieved and you will have to guide here there hence the other commands.

2. Stay: It sounds like you are off to a good start, the reason she gets up at 20 feet is that she feels that you are no longer in a dominant position. Take you time and go slow, if 5 feet is too much only move one foot or stay at 15 and make her stay longer. If that is not working after some time try using a long rope attached to a chocker style collar. The goal here is not to hurt or punish but only to apply enough pressure to let her know that you are still in control. For this to work you have run the rope through an ground anchor near her so the pressure is down not towards you.

3. Retrieving - The command upon a retrieval is "release". The only acceptable behavior is for her to release the retrieved item. Never ever play tug or allow her to pull away or not release a toy, stick.... This is her testing the dominance relationship and this will reinforce that it is ok. When she retrieves give this a try, grasp the item firmly and give the command, if she does not release, hold firmly and give the command again but do not pull. If on the third time you give the command and she does not release use your other hand to remove the item from her mouth. Drop the item at her feet and do not allow her to pick it back up. Repeat as necessary.

This is the hard part. You have to keep other from playing with your lab. This only confuses the situation for the dog. There is a time for play and a time for training but there has to be consistency. If you are teaching retrieving skills you need to make sure that other are not undoing your training by reinforcing bad habits.

Poor behavior in dogs is usually attributed to poor owners. This is not directed at you. I absolutely love labs and for the most part they are great dogs, they do take time and if you invest that time you will have a working friend for life. Too many people buy them, do not spend the time and the dog ends up in a shelter. Sounds like you are off to a good start.

[Duck Hunter Dave]

Thanks Spagluvx! Awesome info! As for the release command, She will return what ever I through, but many times does not wish to release. I will ask her to drop, and she ignores. By the third command, I do reach into her mouth and remove the toy. I never dropped the toy in front of her after removing it from her mouth. I believe that is very sound advise and will deffenitly do that from here on out.
Also, I will head out today and purch a good whistle to use while giving commands. In a video I have, the trainer uses a whistle and various hand commands, I cant imagine why I forgot to itroduce that into my training. I will begin to add the stop, out, left. right, and back commands.
I hadnt allowed other members of our family to play "fetch" with her, as I have 5 children, and its the one command I dont what to screw up! Pulling and tugging is a Banned game here! I relize that leads to bitting and poor habits that the pup doesnt need.
Many thanks for your info, I would be greatful to ask you a few questions in the future as they present them self if its not to much trouble. Dasiy-Mae is an awesome pup and a lot of fun to have around the house. If after all of her training, she doesnt hunt, Im happy to know I'll still have a highly trained dog.

[spagluvx]

There are probably more knowledgeable folk on here, but I will always give you my best 2 cents.

The hand signals are truly amazing once everyone is on the same page. We had the most difficulty with "stop". At this point she would be moving away and she should turn, stop and look at you. This is the point where you would then give the next signal such as out, left, right or back. For me a halter and the rope solved the problem.

If you are not familiar the dog halter is just like the one used for a horse. The lead attached near their muzzle, if you apply tension to the lead/rope it will turn their head down or towards you.

I found the halter to also be useful for teaching her to heel and the boundaries of the yard. In my opinion it was worth the money.

[bkxdm]

as a few others mentioned obedience is the biggest thing for a pup. heel and sit will be your best friend, i do not use the stay command, when i command sit the dog should sit until given another command. this eliminates a command for the pup to learn. you can get small bumpers or paint rollers for him to retrieve, i would not use sticks to play fetch imo. it can cause problems later when out in the field and u want him to retrieve a duck, but he cant find it hes going to bring you a stick. if you can get ahold of a dead pigeon or other small bird let her play with it so she can gets used to real birds. i chose to buy books and dvds that walk you through this very long and challenging process, there are some many little things that can go wrong very quickly. making loud noises while eating and playing is great, i introduced gun fire at 9 months but base this off your dog. each dog is different and will progress at different rates. the biggest thing i learned is do not to get frustrated at the pup, she has to learn a lot of things and it will be a lot easier on you and her if you make it a fun process. i hope this info helps you with your pup and the training process.

[Sandcut]

Our last dog was a Springer Spaniel and I used the book Gun Dog by Richard Wolters as a template to train her. http://www.amazon.com/Gun-Dog-Revolu...der_0525245499

I had her trained for hand signals and whistle signals. I started out using a cap gun during meals and eventually took that to a starter pistol. No fear of firearms at all. She was a fantastic retriever. Unfortunately, she had absolutely no desire to actually hunt.

Dick Wolters goes into a section of the book on the dog's age and when to train. IIRC, he actually references some developmental studies that indicate that the best time to start to train a dog is from weeks 7 - 12, so your pup is right where it needs to be to get the best jump on things. By one year, you'll have many more bad habits to break before you can train effectively.

The funniest part about training our Springer is that we had also just had our elder daughter around the same time. There's a school of thought that advocates teaching young children sign language as a means of communicating before they can speak. It just so happened that many of the hand signals that I was using for my dog carried over very nicely when training my kids.

Take the time to train the family what commands you want to have standardized so that the pup is getting the same commands from all members of the family consistantly and it doesn't lead to confusion for the dog.

[cakeshooter]

I haven't had any hunting dogs but I've trained dogs and the only thing I have to add to the awesome advice above is to be consistent. Don't let the dog get away with things....disobedience should be corrected immediately. The dog will need to know that commands have to be obeyed ALL the time, not just most of the time, because when they are adults and hunting, you need to be able to trust them completely.

So as soon as the dog starts scooching up to you in a "stay" you have to stop, tell her no, and go reposition her and try again. Etc.....

You may even want to enroll in an obedience class. The nice thing about those is that the dog has to learn to obey you even when there are other distractions (other dogs, other people) around.

Have fun!!! Post pix! :-)