|
Post by Washkeeton on Jan 19, 2006 22:45:51 GMT -5
Any one want to talk hunting dogs and maybe how to train them?
|
|
|
Post by brent on Mar 8, 2006 22:44:05 GMT -5
Hi Washkeeton, What kind of hunting dogs do you want to talk about? I'll talk dogs with you. Do you have any now if so what breeds? What do you hunt with them? Grouse, ducks? brent
|
|
|
Post by Washkeeton on Mar 9, 2006 2:41:37 GMT -5
I have eight dogs. One is a mini schnauser and boy he has an attitude. I have 7 sled dogs. My daughter has a black lab. I have never trained any for hunting. Nor have I ever been bird hunting. Please if you would like talk to us and teach us. I would love to know. I know it takes lots of time to train a good bird dog.
|
|
|
Post by brent on Mar 9, 2006 12:57:35 GMT -5
while I'm not going to tell you that I am a great dog trainer I have trained a few for myself and others. currently I have a chesapeake bay retriever but have had labs, pointers, setters, shorthairs, wirehairs, brittany's. my dad had schausers and they definitly had spunk...
how old is the black lab? what kind of birds do you want to hunt? is it the black lab that you want to train? first and foremost, you are not training the dog as much as you will be training yourself. if you have trained the sled dogs then you will have no problem training a dog to hunt. hunting is natural for dogs, you just are there to encourage the positive things he does and discourage the negative things he does. PATIENCE and CONSISTENCY are the 2 most important things to teach YOURSELF. its like teaching a 3yr. to wash his hands after going to the bathroom. you have to be patient and consistent with it or the youngster is not going to take it seriously and do something he wants to do instead like go play. now, with enough patience and consistency by the parent. over time the child will accept that washing his hands after going to the bathroom is something that is a positive and therefore he will repeat it. sure he is going to test you and test you but he will finally come to realize that it is better to wash his hands and have your approval then to not have your approval. and if you are patient and consistent with your training of the hand washing then you have created a habit for the child. a very positive habit. that's all dog training is. please, don't anyone beat me up for thinking that I expect a 3 yr. child to wash his hands everytime after going to the bathroom. I don't, no one in their right mind can but what you have started here with the simple hand washing is a foundation of positive learning and habits for the child. now fold in a huge dose of love and you have a recipe of success.
you said that you knew that it takes lots of time to train a good bird dog. that's true but I have hunted over 6 mos. old dogs a lot. that doesn't mean that the dogs did everything right, far from it, but they were being encouraged and trained to do something that was natural to them. so they were learning. more importantly, learning to do something they enjoyed. a good bird dog is only as good as what you perceive him to be, not what others think. I have hunted behind what I was told by the owner to be "wonder-dog" only to have a different opinion of the dog myself. (course I kept those opinions to myself. its better to insult a man's wife then it is his dog)...I'm kidding!!!!!! anyway, if the dog is trained good in your opinion then you have a good trained dog.
if you can give your dog 5 minutes a day then you will have a good trained dog. if you can't give him that then you can still end up with a good trained dog it just might take alittle longer.
let's get started........
brent
|
|
|
Post by Washkeeton on Mar 9, 2006 19:47:25 GMT -5
I am not sure my dds lab is hunting material. This is a 1.5yr old that the simple command of sit took months to teach. She has eaten a full bar of ivory soap in one swallow. She is a ditz from the word go. I think the rest of the litter got the brains and she was lucky that my daughter took her in. Dont get me wrong I like her but that dog I would swear is mentally retarded. She is psycho hyper. I have tried to teach her stuff and spent 10 to 15 min and she looks at me like are you crazy. You want me to what?? I do love the retrievers, mostly the goldens. Some day I tell myself. My neighbor has them for sale, AKC and his are just the most loveable creatures.
|
|
|
Post by wolfwoman on Mar 10, 2006 18:10:39 GMT -5
Wash, the lab isnt' a ditz, she's just not old enough yet believe it or not. I have had many labs in the past, my past two purebreds and now Lokie. Lokie was a dingbat until she was well over 2 years old, then all of a sudden everything clicked. She started listening, learning and behaving, it was like I had another whole dog. I had the same thing happen with her mother who was close to THREE before she started behaving like a dog with something upstairs besides fluff. Tis a strange thing, maybe it's a lab thing because all my husky mutts learn from week 8, go figger.
Wolfie
|
|
|
Post by brent on Mar 10, 2006 20:14:57 GMT -5
Hi Washkeeton, What are you wanting to train your dog to do? Wolfwoman is right when she stated that the dog was not old enough yet. I'm sure that you have heard of the 7-1 year comparison of dogs to humans, its not exact but it is pretty close. At 1 1/2 dog yrs. she is only behaving like a 10 yr. kid. That is partly why she is hyper, the other factor is her breeding. If her parents are hyper then more than likely she will be too. She is not to young to learn, she just might be not be able to absorb certain training right now. Every dog is different even within the same breed (and sometimes litters). Just figure out what she is capable of learning at this stage and focus on that, then when she is further down the line start with the other training. Here's what I would do. 1st. judge her temperment (does she WANT to please you or is she a loner). If she wants to please you then great she trainable, if she's a loner, don't waste your time. (Focus on your neighbors goldens.) You can still train her but she won't WANT to do it for you! 2nd. Figure out what she is capable of learning. At 1 1/2 she should be trainable for almost everything. You might just have to take the edge off of her to get her to listen to you. Take her out to the pond or stream or jog for awhile. Heck let her run behind the 4 wheeler or snow machine for awhile to take some energy out of her. After doing that for awhile she will be alot more willing to listen to you instead of her thinking all the time about chasing birds or smelling everything instead of what you are saying. You stated that you taught her to sit, that is great. now use that command to enforce the other ones. If she doesn't listen to what you are teaching her, then have her sit on command. This will do a couple of things, first it reminds her that YOU are in charge and second she knows that it pleases you for her to sit. She will start to put it together and realize its fun to learn new things and to make you happy. You don't really need to teach her much to hunt with her. If she knows one command and one command only it is COME!!! You teach her to come everytime, anytime and she will make you happy and proud to hunt with. If you haven't taught her that yet then that is what I would focus on. You can still reinforce her learn with the sit command and kennel, play some fetch, start training her to the gun if you haven't done that yet. brent
|
|
|
Post by wolfwoman on Mar 10, 2006 23:56:53 GMT -5
That's about the comparison I have too. And at 2 years old they are like TEENagers, even tougher to deal with....lol There's a website somewhere that gives a better idea of how old your dog is rather than just multiplying by 7, because that really doesn't work. My Lokie now is just wonderful at 3 years old, can take her off leash and she will (for the most part) stay right with me. It's been a long haul with her after training Dakota to stay close by and he did it at 6 MONTHS, so very very different. Kinda like my two kids are like night and day also.
I'll try and find that website, it's pretty neat on how it tells you the age of your dog. You kinda have to take a quiz for each breed you have, but it's nifty.
|
|