I like Zach a lot but if he needs to relax to do force fetch then he is gonna needs some Valium
I would laugh at Zach but won't. Instead, I will laugh with Zach. I definitely fit the description as well. lol
That was funny stuff Milo.
"Little" Emmitt pup...
- Thread starter Rutin
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I would laugh at Zach but won't. Instead, I will laugh with Zach. I definitely fit the description as well. lol
That was funny stuff Milo.
Force Fetch BLOWS!!!!! It's long and tedious. Like Jim said, keeping a cool head when your dog isn't doing what "you" think he should be is tough at times. I honestly think the best video out there is Hillmans. I've got Chris Akins duck dog basics 1 & 2 your welcome to borrow. Its very low key, and user friendly. I also have Mike Lardy's Total Retriever Training program and its VERY thorough but a little more advanced. Hillmans videos are very easy to follow and the dude is LOW key! His method is ALL about praise. I would say Maverick will be down with FF in less than 4 weeks and on to pile drills. There's a ton of info on youtube Zach, but having a video at home and program to follow will make life a lot easier. OR join a local HRC and get with a group to help out. I joined Ohio Valley Retriever club and we work a lot out at Woodbury which would be fairly close to you.
I don't know much about training retrievers. Remi never picked up a bird until he was 5 and was almost 3 before we even started working on holding/marking/heeling. But at 7.5 and nearly blind, he'll go and get a birds and bring them back. Sort of. Most of the time. I guess it all depends on what you want. You guys are after machines from what I can gather. Can't see me ever getting that detailed with it. It is interesting to read about and follow what you guys are doing, just not something I can see me doing.
Hope your dogs turn out like you want them to Zach. Definitely good looking animals!
Hope your dogs turn out like you want them to Zach. Definitely good looking animals!
5 years ago I bet you never thought you'd hate deer hunting as much and take up waterfowling to fill the voids deer hunting doesn't. Wait til duck hunting takes over and you want a SOLID dog. Like everything else we do with hunting we want just a little bit, then a little more, then we're broke and consumed with it! The same happens with dogs. When there isn't much to do in the summer except train and prepare for duck season it fuels a fire like no other. Sooo..... never say never on the dog deal!
Trust me on this, there is ALWAYS plenty to do for me in the summer. I'm sure I'll spend more time with the next dog, but I'm a long way from having the time it takes to put in to one the way some of you guys have. That and I would never send a dog away. No offense to you for doing so, just not something I would do. If I'm going to have a solid dog, I'll be responsible for it. I'm also fine with wading out for a bird or going after it with the boat. Not the end of the world. If my dog get 8 out of 10, I can live with that. Better than 0 out of 10...
Yea I never thought I'd be ate up with dog training like I am either... But that changed pretty damn fast. Once you see first hand what these dogs are capable of, it makes the mediocre stuff almost invisible to you. I enjoy seeing the dog work more than I enjoy pulling the trigger nowadays. When you can send your dog for a bird over 100 yds away that it never saw fall, that is just flat out rewarding and awesome. But it IS a ton of work to get them to that point. I can definitely see that it would be more difficult to accomplish with kids or other responsibilities in the mix.
This is the tough part for me, a kid, 48 hr. work schedule, on top of hunting season and another dog make it very tough to give the attention needed to thoroughly train CC & FF! I swore on my life I would never send a dog to a trainer, if I couldn't do collar conditioning and force fetching myself I didn't want it done. I quickly learned that by the time you shovel the money out for a dog, its a very small expense over the course of its life to get some help training. Plus why not make your dog the best it could possible be? It's like a kid..... if you can afford to send your kid to private lessons to be better themselves in something you know little about, why wouldn't you? I've seen to many guys who thought they could do it all and ruin a dog that HAD potential or not be stern enough to get important lessons across bc they've become to soft/trained by their own dog. Having a good dog requires swallowing your pride sometimes and either sending them off for a short period, working with a trainer, working with a group of pros, ect.
First hand experience NO means NO, Not 3x from the first NO. Watched my uncles self trained lab chase a running pheasant toward a road, he yelled NO, NO, WHACK! Lack of OB on my uncles part honestly cost the dog his life. Same goes for duck dogs, sometimes its just not safe for a dog to make a retrieve and if the dogs running the show, your just its puppet.
Couldn't agree more. If there's one thing that annoys me it's begging and nagging a dog to do something. I'm a proponent of being stern and getting my point across... The first time. Seems to yield good results. Not so much because of the approach but because of the consistency I think.
Well Maverick has been back for a few days now and Sarge finally healed up so training has been in full force. I swear Sarge had the maturity of an old man at 6 months old and Mav has the maturity of a 2 yr old kid at 12 months old. COMPLETLEY different animals, but the crazy part is they are damn near at the same place in training. Sarge has hit a slight wall on blinds but has casting down very well. Today I just started Mav on pile work so within a week or so we should be right into casting. Ran Mav on 3 singles (60,150,220 yds) and then put him up for 5 mins, got him back out and ran it as a true triple and he nailed it. Dog is a really good marker and has a turn of energy and learns stupid quick. Sarge is just stubborn and wants to hunt and say "F" this training, lets kill shit. Mav is also about 3" taller than Sarge and has become a very BIG animal. I'd assume that once he hits 1.5 yrs old and fills completely out he will be mid 80's easy. Snapped a few pics of him the other day while training, wish I would of got a better side shot of him but he hunkered down on the last bird and got ready to take off before I could get a solid straight up sitting pic. Def ready to get him in some water here soon since he hasn't had a whole lot of water training although with his drive its highly unlikely we will have any complications.
He is getting big dude. May take longer than 1.5 for him to fill out though. Betty's two brothers, over 2 yrs old, are still skinny as rails. Big tall lanky fuggers but just haven't quite filled in yet.
It's amazing the amount of energy these high octane dogs have. They just flat out go... and go... And go some more. Good for drive and prey desire but sometimes difficult to wrangle in and get to focus.
As far as Mav and Sarge being so close on their training progression... I was just thinking about this the other day. That first year or so of training... Most of the basics and what-not... Just goes so fast and they learn so many things so quickly. Then when you hit that transitions stage running cold blinds and the like, everything slows WAY down. It's all then just a matter of repetition instead of teaching new things. I mean, you ARE teaching new things in the fact that the dog is learning how to deal with factors and line influences, but they can't learn those skills as quickly as they do other things. I'm at this point with Betty and she's doing great, but it's tough when you don't see the immediate progression that you're used to. Plus, it takes so frickin long to set up all the longer marks and blinds and drills. Shit just today, it took me almost 20 minutes to get everything set up... A 175 yard ladder drill and a couple pretty long cold blinds (200 and 225)... And Betty ran through it all in less than 15 minutes lol. Sure would be nice to have a quad or side by side for setting up!
It's amazing the amount of energy these high octane dogs have. They just flat out go... and go... And go some more. Good for drive and prey desire but sometimes difficult to wrangle in and get to focus.
As far as Mav and Sarge being so close on their training progression... I was just thinking about this the other day. That first year or so of training... Most of the basics and what-not... Just goes so fast and they learn so many things so quickly. Then when you hit that transitions stage running cold blinds and the like, everything slows WAY down. It's all then just a matter of repetition instead of teaching new things. I mean, you ARE teaching new things in the fact that the dog is learning how to deal with factors and line influences, but they can't learn those skills as quickly as they do other things. I'm at this point with Betty and she's doing great, but it's tough when you don't see the immediate progression that you're used to. Plus, it takes so frickin long to set up all the longer marks and blinds and drills. Shit just today, it took me almost 20 minutes to get everything set up... A 175 yard ladder drill and a couple pretty long cold blinds (200 and 225)... And Betty ran through it all in less than 15 minutes lol. Sure would be nice to have a quad or side by side for setting up!
LOL I hear ya Jim. Sometimes its kind of comical the amount of work WE setup for ONE dog to run right through it. I'm definitely in this boat with Mav because the boy can flat out cover some land. One added benefit is that my front yard (mowed area) is basically the size of a football field. Imagine a football field with a gravel road down the middle, one side cut to standard grass height and the other 8" of hay regrowth. Makes it a nice transition area and allows me to run multiple setups.
Walked out back to our "creek", well it was out of its banks and the boys dove straight in. The "current" in this creek is minimal at best 90% of the time, but after yesterdays rain it was flat out raging! Bad enough that when they jumped it they ended up 20+ yards downstream and the creeks only 20 yards wide. I let them due it bc it was so narrow that I wasn't to concerned but it was flat out kicking their ass! I'll take some more pics of our setup today. I got a feeling Mav is going to blow past Sarge before too long. Concepts seem to stick faster in his mind where Sarge takes several more attempts before he's "good". I truly believe this is where genetics take over and outweigh the average dog.
Walked out back to our "creek", well it was out of its banks and the boys dove straight in. The "current" in this creek is minimal at best 90% of the time, but after yesterdays rain it was flat out raging! Bad enough that when they jumped it they ended up 20+ yards downstream and the creeks only 20 yards wide. I let them due it bc it was so narrow that I wasn't to concerned but it was flat out kicking their ass! I'll take some more pics of our setup today. I got a feeling Mav is going to blow past Sarge before too long. Concepts seem to stick faster in his mind where Sarge takes several more attempts before he's "good". I truly believe this is where genetics take over and outweigh the average dog.
You've got your yard set up similarly to mine. I've got 2 acres of mowed grass and another acre out back that I leave to grow. Makes it really nice when you wanna add just a touch of cover to your marks. The neighbor next door has a 40 acre CRP field with an air strip mowed in the middle. That makes for a nice lane to work on lining. Even so, the ideal training yard becomes less than ideal after you've ran it 100 times. Lol.
Totally agree on the genetics thing. And Mav definitely has one hell of a strong pedigree.
Little update on Mav as well..... He just turned two, and is running GREAT! I have no doubt I could run a master test with him this year if I wanted after a little more water work. Ran a Qual land test yesterday, triple with a blind and he smashed it. Go bird was 125, 2nd bird was 180, long retired 3rd bird at 250 with A LOT of suction, then a 180 yard cold blind that broke thru a hay field into a corn field. 1 whistle on the blind (wasn't necessary but needed to be a little cleaner), he was only off by 3' at the most but I wanted a dead straight line. He's going to run his first Qual in April, fingers crossed we make it through it but it wouldn't surprise me if we don't on his first try. Either way I'm very pleased with this dog, his best years are yet to come! Little Mav is a big mofo now and ripped like no other!
Field trials are completely foreign to me but it sounds like he's doing well for you. Looking forward to seeing some more progress!
Me too for the most part.... this will be our first one. A Qual is like a master test but dog vs dog and harder distances and factors. I'd be tickled if he can get a QAA this spring, but then the real question occurs after that..... do I send him off to try and get an FC/AFC.