We have a gun dog training program for dogs that we keep for ourselves from our breeding program. We believe that dogs learn and retain best with lots of repetitions and positive reinforcement and that’s what our program is based on. We like dogs that possess “prey drive”. It’s a natural behavior and isn’t something that you should have to teach a well bred gun dog to do. We like our dogs to take a line naturally and follow scent in the right direction. It is an innate talent that Labradors have, particularly if they are from good working lines. We don’t view training as a race against the calendar or clock; it’s an investment for the future and an investment of our time. We intend on running our dogs in hunt tests and eventually from duck hunting blinds and flooded timber under real live hunting situations. We will be occasionally posting pictures and videos of our dogs in training and on duck hunts. We hope you enjoy them.
Arlo just shy of five months old. We’ve been working on heel and sit on whistle command. Started teaching recall from place board yesterday. Throwing bumpers and sending him to retrieve and then recall back to place board.Arlo just shy of four months doing some water retrieving.Alina doing some water retrieving.Alina doing some water retrieving.Alina doing a water retrieve.Taylor having fun in the water at 4 months old.Charlie doing a memory retrieve.Alina doing a memory retrieve.Taylor doing a Mark land retrieveAlina doing a Mark land retrieveTraining our dogs to place on stand away from the shooting in the duck blind. Farther away protects their hearing from the shotgun blasts. Teaching to go to place on the stand then on command go retrieve and deliver to hand at the duck blind and then back to place on stand until called on to do another retrieve. We eventually want to be able to send them to place on a stand 40-50 yards from the blind. This is Alina learning to put all the pieces of training together.We start strengthening the retrieving desire and building prey drive at a very early age. I am working these pups with a pheasant wing. We’ll move to a canvas bumper next then to a regular bumper and start teaching the place command. These pups have some outstanding dual purpose Labradors in their pedigree. Not only MBISS winners but dogs who have also earned their Working Certificates and Junior Hunter Titles. We’re very pleased with what we are seeing out of them.Taylor at four months oldTeaching over right command followed by left back commandContinuing to build the retrieving desire in the pups. Teaching place and recall to place after retrieving the bumper.The pups are three and a half months old and this past weekend they got their first introduction to water. Other than the blue kids pool from Dollar General and water puddles after rains they hadn’t been around swimming depth water. This is Arlo doing a retrieve. Harland thought about it and then decided to go help big brother but then decided to let big brother finish what he started. We took Taylor for the pick up dog but Arlo said hold my beer I got this. And that he did. He done a lot of retrieving. Wore out towards the end and Taylor picked up a couple to finish the day. We were really impressed with all three for their first times out. We got them all to swim across a rectangular pond and meet us on the other side. We were also able to get some pattern work in with Taylor. A beautiful day with temperatures in the 70’s and a nice breeze.Working on parts of the Land T Drill. Back, right back and traffic cop stopI call this my duck blind training drill. Dog on place stand away from duck blind. Simulate a duck being shot then send dog to retrieve and bring to the duck blind then return to place. This one wasn’t perfect but a lot of work to get to this point.We introduce our pups to gunfire early on. Today they got to experience it connected with a retrieve. They got to watch an older dog retrieve and then got their turn. This is the first steps to steadying and honoring another dog.This is Stella. She is five months old. She actually does better on a canvas bumper but they are so light that they don’t launch well from the winger so we are using a soft bumper. The ropes are great for tossing but pups are more apt to grab the rope rather than the center of the bumper. A good session and nothing that can’t be fixed down the road.Running a ladder drill and letting the pup watch. She’s getting use to the tie out. The start of learning to honor another dog and builds excitement and drive. This is Alina running a land mark. If you listen close you can hear a wild turkey gobbling back at the duck quack. We have a lot of wild turkeys in our areaTaylor running a land mark retrieveAlina on another mark land retrieveTaylor on a mark land retrieveAlinaRunning land marks on this beautiful Sunday morning. Getting our training in before the temperature goes up. Alina running this markTaylor running this mark land retrieve on a beautiful Sunday morningAlina running a mark land retrieve. Taylor and Hachi watching
