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Sent my pup to school and..... #4244707 05/09/13 07:44 PM
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daniel25s Offline OP
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Sent my GSP to gun dog school march 9th and I went to visit him last week and i thought he would be further along in training then he was when I visited him.
The trainer put a couple dead ducks in some brush and showed me what he knew. It could just be me and being that this is my first dog sent off to gun dog school but he did not do very well with the “whoa” command when coming up to the dead ducks. He also IMO did not do very well with force fetch and the trainer said they had not worked on retrieving yet because he had not mastered force fetch. As far as I know force fetch and “whoa” is the only thing they have worked on him with for the two months he has been there. He also asked me if he could keep him another month which is not a big deal as long as my dog really needs it. most of you know sending a dog to school is not cheap and I just want to be sure that im getting quality training for my pup. Like a mentioned this could be just me and everything could be just right on schedule.
Trainer said he is doing “great” and he will be a great hunting dog when he is finished but im just not seeing that currently

Is this a normal feeling for sending your first hunting dog to school??


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Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: daniel25s] #4244736 05/09/13 07:54 PM
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bill oxner Offline
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Several people wrote that the pup was a little young when you asked a couple of months ago. Who is the trainer?


Quail hunting is like walking into, and out of a beautiful painting all day long. Gene Hill


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Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: bill oxner] #4244797 05/09/13 08:14 PM
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What, is he about 8 or 9 months now? Did I read that right that the trainer placed "dead ducks" in the brush for the dog to point for you? Is that what he is training with? Is the dog being exposed to live birds, pigeons, quail, pheasant, etc.? Any training table work with live birds?

Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: Sniper John] #4244807 05/09/13 08:18 PM
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daniel25s Offline OP
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he was six months to the day when i sent him ( trainers recomendation ) and yes he put dead ducks for him to point.
trainer says he will get to live birds within the next couple weeks


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Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: bill oxner] #4244818 05/09/13 08:22 PM
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kindall Offline
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Without going into is the dog to young or the trainer any good.

It takes as long as it takes.
Ive had them learn one part of training very quickly, and take longer on something else.
A trainer can't move to the next step until the dog has the first one down. Then there are times they have to take a step back with them. If all the training steps aren't set in stone, you will have holes in the dogs training.



Shopping with your husband is like hunting with the game warden.
Experience is what you get, when you didn't get what you wanted.


Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: kindall] #4244826 05/09/13 08:26 PM
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Leonardo Offline
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I just got my pup back from the trainer and I had the same impression on my first visit. Then I became more involved in the process to understand completely and ended up completely satisfied.

Dogs are like humans. They all learn at different ages and under different time frames. Be patient.

Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: Leonardo] #4244843 05/09/13 08:36 PM
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I don't know anything about it but sniper John brings up a good point. He's been at the trainer 2 months and hasn't seen a live bird?

My first pup goes to the trainer soon so like I said I don't know much.

Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: changedmyname] #4244854 05/09/13 08:40 PM
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daniel25s Offline OP
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the dog is now 8 months
i have spoke to many people about this trainer and he comes highly recomended so it could just be me


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Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: daniel25s] #4245083 05/09/13 10:04 PM
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kindall Offline
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I guess I haven't heard of the style of training your trainer uses. What breed of dog does he normally train?
You are saying he has ONLY been worked on whoa on dead ducks, and working on force fetch. If I understand you right, he is working on both at the same time.



Shopping with your husband is like hunting with the game warden.
Experience is what you get, when you didn't get what you wanted.


Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: kindall] #4245225 05/09/13 11:16 PM
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This is coming from a trainers perspective. Remember that part of training is for the dog to learn to do things with distractions present. I find that when I have been working with a new dog one on one and then the owner comes for the first visit, the dog rarely does as well as he had been doing due to excitement. Where your dog is at for the age and training timeframe does not seem too bad. My advise would be to make frequent visits and see if your dog is getting better with each visit on the commands that you saw him perform. You should see him get better at handling distractions on each it vistit as his skills start to develop and responses become more conditioned.


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Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: maximumintensityretriever] #4245399 05/10/13 01:04 AM
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I sent my GSP to the trainer at the age of six months last year in September and October. In two months she was exposed to lots of gunfire, had a good understanding of whoa and whistle commands, collar conditioned, and saw many live quail. She will retrieve just not to hand usually. My trainers philosophy was to give her a good foundation and build from there. She was a pup and can only handle so much in two months. Plus he wanted her back home to bond with the family. I visited about every two weeks during the training process. My pup did not care if I was at the training session, she just wanted to run and find birds. We continued training at home and "hunted" ten times at Top Flight. I had to make several phone calls after training for advice. She will go back the trainer for one month this September for a refresher and work on a few more things. My dog is not perfect, but we sure do have lots of fun.

I pick up another GSP pup on Saturday. I get to start the process over a little wiser this time.


Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: KEILER] #4245426 05/10/13 01:25 AM
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My suggestion is just to be patient.

I too sent my dog in March (1st time) to a trainer here in the Houston area, that came very well recommended. I have never been through the process so i have no idea the time and effort it takes to train a "started retriever". I have 100 questions each time i go but have to stop myself from asking too many as I don't want to be the "needy" customer. The Trainer is the expert so in my mind i just have to let him do his job and my dog will performing as advertised by the end of his stay there. I should have taken mine as a pup but waited until he was older. I think i have more SA than he ever has.

Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: KEILER] #4245444 05/10/13 01:36 AM
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Not sure I understand what the trainer is trying to accomplish, but if his training method produces results, who cares. I know I use training methods that most on this forum don't use.

Maybe with dead birds he is trying to get a dog to stop on the first hint of scent where the dog may encounter less than healthy pen raised birds say at a trail or test.

I am training a versatile pup that I have already hunted for pointing quail and retrieving ducks and geese during the same week at the end of his first season. I have also been training and running him in both pointer, retriever, and navhda tests this season. The last thing I want my pup doing is pointing a cold dead duck and especially not during a retriever test. He will be used as a waterfowl retriever half the time so I personally would never use a dead duck for whoa training. But then again, I am prepping a dog for extreme versatility, not just upland game.

I do know I want wild flushing birds so he learns he can't catch them. I want intensity and I need a live bird to get that. There is no greater reward to a pointing dog than a live bird. If you guy has a good reputation, I am sure he will get there with your pup when the time comes.

Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: daniel25s] #4245500 05/10/13 02:02 AM
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Originally Posted By: daniel25s
Sent my GSP to gun dog school march 9th and I went to visit him last week and i thought he would be further along in training then he was when I visited him.
The trainer put a couple dead ducks in some brush and showed me what he knew. It could just be me and being that this is my first dog sent off to gun dog school but he did not do very well with the “whoa” command when coming up to the dead ducks. He also IMO did not do very well with force fetch and the trainer said they had not worked on retrieving yet because he had not mastered force fetch. As far as I know force fetch and “whoa” is the only thing they have worked on him with for the two months he has been there. He also asked me if he could keep him another month which is not a big deal as long as my dog really needs it. most of you know sending a dog to school is not cheap and I just want to be sure that im getting quality training for my pup. Like a mentioned this could be just me and everything could be just right on schedule.
Trainer said he is doing “great” and he will be a great hunting dog when he is finished but im just not seeing that currently

Is this a normal feeling for sending your first hunting dog to school??


If the trainer is not going to charge you another month, I guess so.

Of course he said the dogs going to be "great", hes training him, hes not gonna say hes gonna suck. Your not seeing it after two months and I think its because your not going to. I hope am wrong but if the dogs breeding was great, I wouldnt worry too much

I would be really ticked off. I supposed a "pro" should be done with ff in a lot less than 3 months??? And the pup has not yet been on a bird? Wow. Just read all of what KEILER dog was doing at the same time frame as yours.

Training your own dog is not as hard as one would think or as expensive.

Last edited by MS1454; 05/10/13 02:03 AM.

Originally Posted By: Fooshman
I'll take a Black Female every time.

Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: Sniper John] #4245506 05/10/13 02:05 AM
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If he doesn't know what whoa means after two months your trainer must not be spending much time with him.
Do yourself a favor and learn to train your own dogs. If you only have 30 minutes a day to spend with them you will be much more satisfied when you finish your own dog.

Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: scalebuster] #4245711 05/10/13 03:34 AM
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kindall Offline
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I'm going to keep an open mind on this one.

Ive seen dogs run through a training program with lighting speed, and others need more time. Dogs that seemed like they wouldn't work out, were late bloomers. They just needed more time to mature.



Shopping with your husband is like hunting with the game warden.
Experience is what you get, when you didn't get what you wanted.


Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: kindall] #4245904 05/10/13 11:15 AM
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Originally Posted By: kindall
I'm going to keep an open mind on this one.

Ive seen dogs run through a training program with lighting speed, and others need more time. Dogs that seemed like they wouldn't work out, were late bloomers. They just needed more time to mature.



X2. If you have some of the mindsets that have been stated here, do yourself a favor and don't train your own dog. Every dog trains at thier own pace. This is especially true of something like force fetch which is a lot of pressure on the dog depending on the method. I have had mutts come through that I could be done FF with in two weeks. I also have an FC/AFC dog in the kennel right now that took almost two months from hold to force to the pile. And you would be hard pressed to find a better breeding. And as far as foundation goes, obedience and FF is the foundation.


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Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: maximumintensityretriever] #4246128 05/10/13 01:25 PM
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thanks for all the great info guys


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Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: daniel25s] #4246384 05/10/13 02:53 PM
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It takes about 2 weeks to put a good whoa on a dog and if you put the time in, you can take a dog that is ready for training and introduce them to birds and gunfire, whoa break them, and get them steady to flush and honoring in two months. It makes no sense that someone would plant dead ducks for a pointing dog, especially after 2 months. The only explanation for it is that he probably does not have live birds to train the dog on. It is expensive to buy and keep birds, but there is no substitute for it. Everyone has their own philosophy, but on average, you are better off waiting until they are over a year old to put the pressure of "whoa" breaking on a dog. I have done it much earlier, but it is better all around to let them be puppies their first year. Why would he be teaching "whoa" and force fetch before the dog even knows what to be looking for? It is much better for the dog to be introduced to birds in a low pressure fun way. Once the pup understands that the birds are fun and has their prey drive built up and a love for hunting, then, you can start putting pressure on the dog and finishing them with much smaller risk of problems.

Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: steadypoint] #4246426 05/10/13 03:16 PM
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Originally Posted By: steadypoint
It takes about 2 weeks to put a good whoa on a dog and if you put the time in, you can take a dog that is ready for training and introduce them to birds and gunfire, whoa break them, and get them steady to flush and honoring in two months. It makes no sense that someone would plant dead ducks for a pointing dog, especially after 2 months. The only explanation for it is that he probably does not have live birds to train the dog on. It is expensive to buy and keep birds, but there is no substitute for it. Everyone has their own philosophy, but on average, you are better off waiting until they are over a year old to put the pressure of "whoa" breaking on a dog. I have done it much earlier, but it is better all around to let them be puppies their first year. Why would he be teaching "whoa" and force fetch before the dog even knows what to be looking for? It is much better for the dog to be introduced to birds in a low pressure fun way. Once the pup understands that the birds are fun and has their prey drive built up and a love for hunting, then, you can start putting pressure on the dog and finishing them with much smaller risk of problems.


X2... excellent post.


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Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: steadypoint] #4246716 05/10/13 05:12 PM
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Good post T. Now some of us get lucky and have a pup that basically breaks itself at 9 mos. old like the pup I got from you. At 2, she has become my alpha dog and bird finding machine. She is the finest piece of dog flesh I have ever owned and there have been a few.

MP

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I'm curious if the dog was sent to a retriever trainer and not a full time pointer trainer?


Attention rickym, this is not a troll post, just a good hearted fun type of post
Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: garrett] #4247043 05/10/13 07:25 PM
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trainer said he trains all sorts of gun dogs
he stated after four months is up that he will be able hunt ducks ,quail or dove

we shall see


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Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: daniel25s] #4248886 05/11/13 06:01 PM
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Just some thoughts. Has the trainer had the dog get after cripple birds and be sure he is birdy and has the trainer introduced gun fire to this dog. IMHO the trainer should be using live birds to get a fire built in the dogs pants for birds and to let the dog flush and chase freely at first so the dog learns he cannot catch the birds and that birds are most often found around the trainer.

We have a new trainer on site now if interested.


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Re: Sent my pup to school and..... [Re: NorthTXbirdhunter] #4251578 05/13/13 02:14 PM
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Thank You MP. That is appreciated.

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