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Training
Theory
We develop our training programs to the
specific needs of your dog. Below is just a guideline for our training
program and will change based on the dog in training. We like to start
our dogs early to help in their development and decrease in potential
problems in training later on.
Basic
Obedience: (4 to 8 weeks)
We start our dogs early in training to avoid potential problems down the
road and also to evaluate the puppies to help in the selection process.
We introduce our puppies to 209 primers at 4 weeks and 12 gauge poppers
(at a distance) at 6 weeks. We also introduce them to a large variety of
birds to include small ducks, pheasant wings, quail, chukar, and goose
wings. By 6 weeks we start to introduce them to water (Pictured upper
right) and also to live flyers shown below. By 7 weeks they are
retrieving land and water with great desire. By the eighth week they are
kennel trained and ready for their new home and continued training.
Basic
Retriever Training:
(3 to 6 months)
During this point in training we build what we started. We continue to
work on obedience to set part of the foundation. We throw lots of marks
to build good marking skills and work in the yard on handling drills.
Simple baseball and pill work help build good
responses later in training. We stretch the marks out to at least 150
but depending on the dogs development could be 300 yards. We also
introduced very simple doubles in areas of minimal barriers to start to
build confidence.
Intermediate Retriever Training:
(7 -12 months)
This level begins by finishing the foundation work. We start at 6 months
of age with the force fetch and it continues into the 7th month. After a
solid force fetch we move into the collar conditioning and return to the
force fetch to do the collar fetch. At this point we demand delivery to
hand in the heel position and steadiness on the line. All this time the
dogs have been honoring other dogs and are now figuring out when to go
and not to go. We build off of the initial yard work of handling drills
and progress to casting drills, advanced baseball, walking baseball,
 single,
double and triple T work. We then move into the swim by prior to
starting pattern blinds. We build the dogs confidence with lots of
different patterns through varied terrain prior to advancing to cold
blinds. We also teach diversion, poison birds and start on simple
retired guns. During this phase your dog is introduced to advanced
doubles and straight forward triple.
Finished Retriever training:
(13-18 months)
During this stage in training your dog is doing nice land and water
blinds. They are also picking up triples very consistently. Our goal
during this stage is to finalize training prior to entering our
continued work in advanced training. We work again on de-cheating and
other areas that need fine tuned. At this point we believe our dogs have
reach trial readiness and are competing in the highest level we feel
they can achieve.
Advanced Retriever Training:
(19 months and up)
During advanced training we continue to feed off of what we have been
doing all this time but increasing the difficulty. Your dog will be
doing quads with multiple blinds. Will start to work with literal
casting. Work on fighting factors like wind, water and terrain. This is
on going training to keep your dogs abilities moving in a positive
direction to keep them competitive.
All of our training is based on the
advancement of your dog. Pressure is used to achieve certain aspects of
training but is not the primary tool to do so. We use attrition in our
training along with positive reinforcement. Above description of
training will depend on the desire and trainability of your dog.
For
training pricing look under our fees page.
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