Hi All,

First post here but been lurking for the past few weeks and learning a lot.

Living in Andrews right now and working on training my ~1.5 year old lab Daisy.


I'll provide some background then get to my questions.

My (now) wife got the lab for me in April last year while she was finishing up school and I was out here working. My wife did basic puppy obedience and socialized the dog while at school and then moved out here last August (Daisy was 5 months then). She'd trained a dog previously and was pretty comfortable with all of that, seemed to do a good job, although we never used any formal program (I had bought smartworks however got shot down on following it 100% so never started it).

At 5-6 months though the dog was doing pretty well as far as basic obedience, not 100% reliable but would sit, lie down, and come pretty well (stay was never very strong though). As far as walking on a leash she was doing pretty well with not pulling and would sit on command if a person came up as we'd focused on making her sit before letting her meet people, pets etc in order to keep her from leaping all over them.

As we got closer to our wedding in November though we really stopped working with Daisy much and after not getting back to it as much as planned after the wedding I'm struggling to figure out where to start. I still don't have my wife sold on smartworks but I've bought the book "10 minute retriever" and am having better luck with that getting accepted. So after all this time has passed I'm tired of having a dog that doesn't listen all the time and I'm trying to figure out how best to get back on track (it's pretty obvious all the things I've done wrong but not as obvious to me how best to get going again). I've pretty much written off this dove season but as long as I start making forward progress I'll be pretty happy.

Right now Daisy has basic puppy obedience down pretty well in that she'll listen pretty well without any serious distractions but we've been at a standstill for the past few months and I'd like to move past that and have a well trained dog who I actually look forward to taking on walks and training.

Recently I've been taking her for walks with a pinch collar (and a choke chain on as the pinch collar broke once while we were working - in a fenced area thankfully) and she's been getting a little better but I still struggle with her heeling and not pulling on the leash (when she's not heeling well). Generally if she starts walking ahead I'll give the heel command or say nah-ah-ah and stop walking. She'll generally run back around behind me and sit at my left when I do this but often when we start walking again she'll just run back ahead. If she’s walking with me well for a few seconds I’ll generally tell her “good girl” and give her a small treat (1/2” long piece of soft jerky stick or something that she can swallow easily and quickly.) This will work pretty well but I’m still having issues getting her to consistently heel while on leash.

I’ve also been struggling with “Come” even just in the back yard. There’s a few feet from my back door to the door of our dog run and if she runs into my backyard and starts playing in the grass it’s not always easy to get her to come back. We do not currently use an e-collar although I’m not against training her with one (actually really want to but don’t have not pulled trigger on buying one yet as doing some research). She knows the come command as she listens sometimes but has pretty selective hearing with it. Recently I’ve been trying not to call her unless she’s within reach or close enough I can enforce it.

Another concern is that she’ll play pretty rough with our other dog inside the house (border collie). It’s all in good fun and neither get’s hurt but once they’re going I’ve yet to find an effective way to separate them and calm them down (quite annoying while trying to eat/watch TV). She is crate trained (mostly) as she’ll go to bed without any problems but if put in the crate during the day while we’re home she tends to bark/whine a bit and tear at her pillow inside the crate. Similarly she’ll randomly start tearing at her pillow in the living room (although she’s pretty good about not chewing on anything else).

Anyways, I’ve been reading the 10 minute retriever and it makes good sense but I’m not sure where to begin. A lot of the book focuses on puppy training and building a drive to retrieve which I’m not sure if I’ve done successfully or not. She’ll retrieve a ball most of the time but often will drop it halfway back and then if I throw it again she may or may not go after it (ironically in the water she’s much better about retrieving) and will chase down anything (although she’s started cheating at my friends pool and running to the other side before jumping in).

In my mind I’m probably at the stage where I need to start formal obedience, introduce a shock collar/heeling stick etc. but I’m not 100% sure if I should start that now or go back and work on building a drive to retrieve first?

I know many of you have trained dogs, some professionally, some just for fun but any advice is welcome regarding where I should start, anything specific to do, how to convince my wife to follow a particular program 100% even if she doesn’t like parts of it or likes a part of another trainers program better, etc.
Thank you.
Cheers!

What a beautiful girl! Congrats on getting her.

Not to be a Richard or donkey but as I see it you have two options to have a real effective hunting buddy for many years to come. 1 - you tell the wife to STFU that it's your hunting dog and this is the way she is going to be trained. You stick to the program and train yourself a dog that will be exactly what you make and want her to be. 2 - you take her to a trainer and let them teach her the stuff so then you can further train her once she gets home.

I'll be honest it sounds like in the long run you'd be better off finding her a trainer. Not because you're not capable or can't do it but it sounds like the time/effort invovled was more than you anticipated or have and it's going to cause issues between you and your wife.

I went through this and it was a battle with my wife....not fun and in the end I don't have as good of a dog as I would've had I sent her to the trainer but she is exactly what I made her to be and she does what I want her to do.

Good luck...if you train her, pick a program and stick to it until she is as far as you want to take her.

Welcome, and I'll tell you that I'm not a trainer,and As a matter of fact, I'm still training my first lab, and she will be 2 in October. I will give you my opinion, and tips that work for me, so take it for what it's worth. There is a lot of good advice on here, and most folks are receptive to questions. I have learned a ton on here.

If I was in your shoes, I would find a quality training program to start off with, and stick with it. One of the best ways to end the argument of choosing a training program, is that having a trained dog will keep the dog safe period. Before you start any other commands, you need to reinforce and master the basic commands, sit, stay, come, heel, and NO. In order to start with this, ONLY give these commands while the dog is on a leash, so that you can correct her. Keep sessions short and fun, and gradually over a period of time you can lengthen the training sessions. Until your dog has these commands down solid, there is no use in going further. I'm not trying to sound like a snob, but think about it, with the leash you can correct as necessary, and you are conditioning the dog to start learning, AND you are enforcing that you are the Alpha, which is extremely important. Once you do this, then you can move forward. One of the biggest challenges is being consistent. This is where you have to be honest with yourself and ask, am I patient enough to train, or should I send the dog to a trainer?

Anyways, hope this little bit helps, and by the way, I read and studied Robert Walters' Water Dog. I thought this was written very simple, and was easy to follow.

I have a lot of clients that are in your situation. They have something in their mind that they want for their dog but their significant other has another thing. My suggestion would be to find your local club, training group, or pro trainer and take her out when they have a training day and let her watch some more advanced dogs in action. I have suggested this to many people in the past and when they see the end product they are usually very excited and a lot more open minded. This will also give you the added advantage of possibly getting a hands on opinion of where your dog currently is and where you should start as well as making new friends and having someone experienced to guide you.

Thanks for the responses.

I'm having trouble finding a club in the area but did find a trainer who a friend is familiar with who does private lessons and also group classes. However her private lessons are booked until October and her group classes start the same time. I signed up for a basic obedience group class (6 1 hour Saturday sessions) as there were only a few spots left but hopefully will be able to do some private lessons as well and progress a bit more. I kind of think we're okay on the basic obedience front but figure it's not going to hurt and it's not expensive.

In the meantime, can anyone here recommend someone within an hour or so of Andrews? I'm thinking Lubbock might be the best bet and while that's 1.5 hours away I'm willing to do that for awhile until I learn a bit more myself.

Also what would be the suggested action for myself as of now? I have no problem following a book or program but just am not sure where to start as so much of the programs are devoted to puppies and I'm slightly past that. Do I need to focus on building a drive to retrieve or just start enforcing obedience on a 100' lead (or something completely different?). I've got the smartworks program and the book "10 Minute Retriever" but haven't started formally training to either yet as we've just got back to this within the last few weeks and now I'm not sure where to start.

Also, with regards to training my wife, err with my wife, we're working through that and she's fine with me doing whatever I want. Unfortunately the issue came from me having her train the dog and wanting her to train it my way. She's trained quite a few dogs before (family pets and also some working border collies) and did a great job with them and also was going to have the dog for the first 3 months. Where I disagree'd is that it was kind of her program which wasn't based off anything I understood or that was proven to my knowledge. Regardless though she's happy to help me and I'm looking to see how I can best move forward from here.

Judd and Troutmauler are spot on. I will only add that your lab is very bored,and that is a large reason for the tearing stuff up. Get to training ASAP. Challenge your dog's mental capacity. Exercise her often to get the energy level controlled. Make sure your pup knows you are boss! Never allow a dog to place a paw on your foot or on your hand/arm when sitting! That is the dog testing to see who is boss. If you allow it they will never truly be under your control. I do not like the title "10 min.Retriever". It may be okay,but the title scares me. There is nothing fast about training a gun dog except messing it up.

I think the OP would be better off following the Evan Graham program he was considering but I also think that you out to get Amy's book and read it. You might learn something.