Any tips on basic obedience, advanced training, gear, treats, or anything else would be GREATLY appreciated! Thanks so much!
Clicker Dog Training
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Without any experience of training a hunting dog, you will do more harm then good trying. Check and talk to pro hunt dog trainers, not sure how much that would cost as its not my field of expertise, but, you have nothing to lose. Hope I helped.
Dog Training and the Dog-Human Bond
- I have a German shepherd pointer, and she is born for hunting. So I don't know how you could train a dog, especially a lab to hunt. However dogs like to go chasing after just about anything so my advice from here is don't go taking her out in open land as a puppy. She could run away chasing anything and end up in the middle of nowhere.
- You need to ask people who know, and the majority of us who will see your question here at YA will NOT know.
Find a professional trainer or a duck hunter who's experienced and has a good record as a hunter. Those are the people who can help you or train you how to train the dog. -!- - watch a lot of dog shows. take the dog to a park and down to a farm or something so it can explore the wilderness. you need to have a lot of patients and i sugest you get a god clicker as it will really help
- Training a dog for speciality reasons is more demanding than basic obedience. I would see help from an experienced hunter who has trained their own dogs. I'm sure you'll find someone.
- Is there any need to hunt innocent animals, ever heard of karma....?
- You are lucky! There are now some wonderful resources for training gun dogs available to positive trainers. My favorite: Positive Gun Dogs, Clicker Training for Sporting Breeds by Jim Barry. I have been to his weekend seminar and he is great and the book is wonderful--complete with training resources. There is even a positive gun dog training group on line (don't recall the name right now)
Also, The Clicked Retriever by Lana Mitchell
And, Clicker Gundog by Helen Phillips (English author)
Good luck! My Lab mix was clicked to retrieve plastic water bottles and deliver to hand it was easy for her to make the leap to ducks. Took 3 weekends in the field and she is now superb. Better than my husband's previous gun dog, a Germans Shorthair Pointer who was positively trained, but not clicker trained.
Woof,
Elta Woodliff, M.Ed., CPDT-KA
Training Mentor, Animal Behavior College
Training Director, Mark Luttrell Correctional Center PPAWS Program, Memphis,TN - In the Alexandria area there is a lab hunting club on/off hwy 165 I believe. I pass it when I'm going to see my parents. I think your best luck for the advanced or hunting-related training would be to get together with one of them and not to get advice here. If you don't live in CenLa, there is probably another hunting club which would be glad to help you and give advice.
For the basic commands? I would buy or use the stinkiest treats you can find. It doesn't have to be treats as much as anything edible that smells a lot. The smell will draw them to you. For leash training I would start with a 6 ft leash and a choke collar. Many will say this is cruel, but labs are made to go through discomfort to retrieve. You just want to give a quick jerk and release. If this doesn't work for leash walking (it didn't for my dog), then you want to get a Halti. This will control the dog in the same way a horse is controlled. It will move their head and force them to look at you. The instructions for proper Halti use are included with the item. I would also look online for other training methods. The "dog whisperer" is not necessarily a good trainer. There are training certification groups online that have book lists if you want to learn more.
The reason I say to get together with a club for the advanced hunting is because I have a friend who duck hunts whose dog was brought to a supposed hunting trainer. The dog is now terrified of noise. Dogs do have personalities. Two huskies, labs or any other breed will not necessarily be exactly alike and you cannot train them the same necessarily. If you do not know what you are doing for the advanced training, then you are more likely to do more harm than good. - Your best bet is to find someone in your area that trains hunting dogs and work with him. This may require some early mornings as many gun dog trainers will train early in the morning because of the heat. I got my experience by being a bird thrower for a field trial trainer. I showed up at 4:30AM every morning to throw birds before I went to work at 7:30. The experience was invaluable. Plus he helped me train my own dogs and gave me lots of pointers. I have good hunting dogs because of working with this guy.
If you don't have that opportunity, check or some videos and read some books. Anything that Mike Lardy puts out will help you a lot. Martin Deeley is another excellent trainer. Both trainers use e-collars for the advanced exercises. However you most likely will not need this tool starting out. Some things that you will need besides a leash and collar, are a dog training whistle (not a silent whistle), retrieving bumpers; a starting pistol; and some dead frozen ducks. - Hi there!
I would still advise you to seek professional help for this matter for it will help you a lot, even it seems very expensive at the start but later you will see that your expenses in training your dog is nothing compared to when you have an unruly dog in your area.
But if you stick to home train your dog then it will do but you need to buy some books or cd's or dvd's regarding behavior training (cessar millan for example) & some obedience training books, cd's or dvd's.
In your case since you have a Labrador retriever you don't need to worry about it's ability to hunt specially if your lab is a pure breed. It is in your lab's blood to hunt. All you have to do is to master the recall ability of your dog then you are ready to go...
hope this will help your inquiry.
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