Puppy Training

[foxer]

New parent of a 7wk old female Yellow Lab. Gorgeous dog. However, does anybody know of a good place to send for training. Dont need field hunting or retreiving, just for general discipline, etc.....She sure is a bundle of energy with sharp little puppy teeth

[skein]

Foxer,

Find, buy, borrow, or steal the video "Command Performance." It works! It covers the general Sit, Stay, Heel, Come commands that get your pup to the enjoyable stage where you can start training it to hunt. The guy obviously loves dogs, and his techniques are easy to use and quick for the pup to learn.

Besides, if you send your dog off somewhere else, you lose a lot of valuable bonding time - not to mention the fun of seeing your pup start coming around. [img]graemlins/hearton.gif[/img] (Did I mention that you stand to learn a great deal about how a dog learns?)

Then get the book and video "Water Dog" by H.Wolters. I'm not discounting the kennels that *really* train hunting and trials dogs, but don't deal yourself out of the experience, either.

You, sir, are in for a lot of fun!

Skein

[Capin' Dan]

I have to agree with skien, That’s the most enjoyable part of having a new puppy. Just remember 5 minutes a day if you can devote that to training then the pup will learn quickly. Remember everything should be positive reinforcement (Cookie training) for the first few months. If you are not in a positive mood then don't train it will do more harm than good. Remember we communicate with our pets through body movement and attitude and even if we try and put on a front we will not fool them. Keep it positive and keep it fun. Remember this at around 13 to 17 months a dog will transfer things from a short term memory to its long term memory during this time its like having that 13 to 17 yr old teenager female in the house. They forget everything and really start to rebel. Be patient and understand what is happening once they are through that stage they learn quick and easy. This is one of the reason that some field trainers like to wait until two to start training a dog.

[Tilla]

Dan, of course is correctamundo.. Never get ahead of yourself , and it always comes back to basics