# New Pup and first attempt at training.



## Jamaulden (Mar 24, 2011)

I am new to the site. I recently took up duck hunting and now attempting to train a retriever. I have a 5 month old chocolate lab Reese. He is a very good dog and altough I am an amature he seems to have a great drive. We have been working on his basic obediance for 3 months now and he is doing well. He wears an Ecoller but it isnt on yet. We are fine tuning his B\O and now starting to demand quick response to commands. We start each training session with 2 or 3 hup hups and end with 3 retrieves. My wife Is helping now with tossing bumpers for us. He seems to love it. He just lost his last puppy tooth se he has been a bit mouthy and will pick up and drop his bumpers. I have been training with the help of The 10 minute retriever by john and amy dahl. Recomended by a friend it seems to work well. Any how just wanted to see if any more experienced folks have any pointers for me. Look forward to talking to you all.

Thanks - Jonathan


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## Chaws (Oct 12, 2007)

As a new trainer, pick up some more in depth training materials that are visual. For the greenhorn, Evan Graham's Smartwork series is excellent as he's a great trainer trainer and a pretty decent dog trainer. You can expect to spend over $100 on the series from e-collar through force fetch to transition work (ie handling and blinds) but it's worth every penny. Get the dog on some real birds as soon as you can, whether they be pigeons, ducks, pheasants, chucker or whatever. Where are you located? If you're around the F/M area we have a great club near by with lots of members full of knowledge to help you along the way.


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## Guest (Mar 25, 2011)

Graham's stuff is great but I tend to recommend the Fowl Dawgs series by Rick Stawski. It will get you a solid foundation and if you get more interested in competeing than Evan's and Mike Lardy's materials are worth the money. I would also suggest finding a training group. A good training group will be far more helpfull than any book or DVD.

I own pretty much all the training DVD's on the market but still learn far more training with the guys I train with.

www.retrievertraining.net is also a great resource for training questions.


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## Jamaulden (Mar 24, 2011)

We are located in Concord NC just near Charlotte. I'll take a look at those materials. I did try early on to put him on a bird. Had a few dove that I threw for him. He just seemed to lick at them and pluck their feathers. So I quit to try to let him mature a little. I've been meaning to get him on some birds here recently maybe this week I can get on it. Thanks for you help!


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## Jamaulden (Mar 24, 2011)

Working a bit.


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## kghops (Oct 29, 2009)

Your bird issue is a an experience issue, not a maturity issue.

Get him on some live shackled birds and his interest level in retrieving will likely go to another level.

Have fun.

Kg


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