Looking for a hunting/farm dog...

[troutpro]

Me and my dad have been looking for a lab. I will be using it for duck and geese hunting, take it on hikes, take it fishing, train to find deer (just for fun), thinking about training it to find antlers, and it will be our farm dog.

I will probably get a good dog training book, any ideas? Is there anything that I should not get for it, like certain dog treats or bones? Are either males or females easier to train? Have any of you trained a lab before? If so what techniques worked good for you?

Thanks!

[regnar]

Hey trout pro,

labs are great dogs and they do everything that you want except for maybe the antlers and deer tracking (not saying thy cant just have not seen them do it)

First find some one who has a dog that is trained and find out from him or her what books you should read. I have not trained a lab only German Short Hair pointers.

If you are not particular as to what type of dog you want I would suggest you consider on of the Versital breeds (German Short hairs and long hairs, weinmeranners, visulzes, long hair griffons, ect) You can fond out more on them by searching going to NAVHDA (north american versital hunting dog assc.). www.navhda.org/ When I started looking for a hunting dog I too had planed on getting a lab. I saw some one hunting ducks with a GSP one moorning and the rest is history.

I dont think you can beat one of these dogs. INCREDIABLE hunters first and formost. I hunt grouse, phesants, rabbits, geese and ducks with her. She is trained to blood trail (agianst the law in NH so I have not used her for it) and I stated her on antlers this winter. Seems like I will try it with her next year.

They are very good family dogs, (she was 1 when we had our first son and no problems). She is VERY loyal to me and will go anywere I ask her to.

No matter what you get I would get a female. You pay more but they a calmer dogs for the most part and are much easier to train.

Take your time and do LOTS AND LOTS of research before you buy anything. I you have any questions I will gladly help any way I can

[troutpro]

Thanks! I see that site does have a few books. We are going to call around a bit today and see if we can find any good labs. I'm hoping Gander Mt. will have a good training book, not to mention other things like leashes and toys and such. We think we will get a lab, but we haven't made a final choice yet.

[regnar]

Check out this web site

www.onpointkennel.com/

They specize in Versital dogs but have all the supplies you need.

If you send them an email, tell them Jeff Criss told you about them. Dave and Carrol are GREAT people and helped me Immensley with my dog judy. They may even be able to send you to someone with good labs.

When you get a dog, let me know and will be glad to help you all I can.

[troutpro]

I got one! We found a bnch of different sellers in the Penny Saver and found one the sounded good. Both parents had the OAF check, the litter had a group of shots already,dew claws removed, and the parents are hunters, supposively good hunters! We went and checked it out and they had 4 pups, 2 black female and 2 chocolate males. The parents looked like the best labs I have seen in person, in very good shape.
I ended up getting one of the females, we might breed her in a few years. He gave us a bit of food to last us until we could get good puppy food.
So far it has been good. Our 3 year old dog is getting jealous, but is slowly getting better. We named her Crow. When she is in the cage she is quiet. The hardest thing I think will be to keep from happening is to keep my two sisters and my mom from feeding her people food, so far so good. Can't wait until iI can start training her. Tomorrow I will get her use to her name and attempt to get her to sit for a few min, but mostly work on getting her use to her new home and her name.

[rob-s]

good nuff, how about a photo.
y
that should keep you bizzie this summer.
train her right and it will last for years

[regnar]

Here are a few links for you to check out

www.working-retriever.com/

www.huntershooter.com/links/huntingdogs.htm

www.gundogforum.com

www.retrievertraining.org/forums/


The two best pieceses of advise I can give when you start your training is 1. Be consistantly consistant and 2. NEVER get mad at the dog.

By consistantly cosistant I mean you tell the dog the SAME EXACT thing every time you want her to do something. "CROW, COME". If you use that do it EVERY time. Do say that one time and then come crow, or get over here crow, thinks like that. If you stay consistant from day one your dog will not only learn obidence quicker she will have more fun beause she knows what is expected when you say something.

Also dont ever get mad at the dog. You guys will develop such a bond that dog will WANT to please you. If she is doing something wrong it is more than likely somehting that you did wrong in training and she is confused (not always but often) BE VERY Stern but not mad.

Have fun because you are about to have the most loyal hunting partner one can find.

[troutpro]

Another day and the dog is still doing good. Our older dog has gotten use to her some more and found out she is safe from being annoyed on the furniture. However, now she tries to play with it. It is difficult to keep them away from each other once they both get on the same page. Puppy attempts to jump over my hand time after time again, while the other dog takes advantage of the distraction and sneaks around me.

Thanks for the advice regnar. I have been reading a few sections of one book, but it doesn't go into much detail of the commands. It also is does not talk about hunting just basic commands.

It does keep me busy. It is why I am late on responding. It has only had a few accidents, but needs to go out like every 30 min or so to go to the bathroom.

[troutpro]

It took a while to get a good picture. Our older dog was too jealous, she felt the need to be closer to everyone than the pup was. Not to mention the puppy was excited to be in the lawn and our older dog flips on the camera person whenever she here then lense zoom.