making progress!!

So I got a German short hair pointer pup last nov. Ever since I've had her, I've been working w her to get her ready for this yrs duck and dove seasons. After many beatings and much work, I'm proud to say my pointer finally gets it! She ll sit, stay, paw, fetch, jump into her kennel, sleep in her kennel, jump into the bed of my truck, get down, return decoys, swim and fetch decoys etc. I've never trained a dog before but it's worth it. I've still got plenty of ground to cover, and more techniques for her to learn, but I'm finally getting somewhere w her. I'll try to post up some pics. Any comments and tips are greatly appreciated.

We started like this!

Swim lessons

Now we re at this!

If it's already doing what you want, what kind of tips could we offer? Looks like it's going well.

I hope you mean "beatings" you take working through the process and not "beating" the dog. But I would say you have made a lot of progress.

I need tips on how if she doesn't see the bird/decoy fall from the sky to find it. I also need tips on how to correct her to the left or right if she misses the mark. She knows verbal commands not whistle

Start working her on whistle commands. Start with sit and here. One blast for sit and three or so quick tweets for here. Say the command and when she responds, a$$ hits the ground, give a quick tweet on the whistle. When she has that down and will sit on the whistle alone you can send her on a mark and start with stopping her part way there or part way back to reinforce it. After that you can start working with her on baseball or wagon wheel. The way I started my dogs is to sit them down between two bumpers, one on the left and right, about 10' away from them. Step back about 10' and try to cast the dog one direction. If the dog goes the wrong way run in and take the bird. Don't let them get the reward of the retrieve. Reset and try again. If needed be animate and even step to the side on the bird you want her to get first as you use your arm to signal that direction.

That's basically what Water Dog taught and it worked with my first two dogs. You can add a third bird behind her when she has the two sides down and teach "back" as well. After she is casting reliably you can start planting blinds and work from there.