We have looked long and hard for a contributing dog writer for the
Goosepit, with no avail. Taking on the project Andy will write a series of diary
entries as he trains this new lab pup.
Harley was born in
April of this year and given to one of my friends for her birthday. Being the
family’s first dog, they took him to Puppy Kindergarten.
They asked us to sit Harley when they went on vacation, we accepted and
found that he had some bad habits, but being only 14 weeks old we had to be
gentle and very careful in correcting these habits. Harley came to us knowing
what “NO” meant, he could sit, and sit-stay for short periods and was easily
house broken.
These were:
These are usual puppy behavior and Harley being a purebred lab was smart
enough to understand when he did these things he would get attention, good or
bad, so to speak.
Jumping was stopped within three days of arrival, when he jumped he was gently “kneed” and after repetition we found he would not jump. The problem with this is that all children love puppies and when invited he would continue to jump. This was not the fault of the dog but the people interfacing with him, so we told everyone that came to visit not to encourage this behavior and sure enough he has stopped.
Digging was a different story, first you had to catch him “red handed” and second, he was encouraged to dig by our other labs. Quit the situation, since I truly believe that the other dogs would do this on purpose. They would get him started then go lay down and watch the fireworks. Who said labs aren't smart? We opted for a very low voltage training collar and would put the collar on him when he went out, sitting back we watched form inside the house or our porch and when he dug he got a momentary correction from the collar, very effective. Harley does not dig any more though once in a while he has a relapse. I would like to add here that the training collar used was from Tri-Tronics and they have a very good training guide on their web site. (http://www.tritronics.com) Some would say that is fine but it will only correct the behavior when the collar is on, for this we have a dummy collar, using the two for about a week we went back to the regular collar and hardly use the Tri-Tronics collar any more.
So here we have Harley after 14 weeks, a very active pup that knows, sit,
come stay and is ready to learn heel. Actually
walking on a lead is something that is practiced each time he is walked, (twice
a day) and he is becoming very familiar with the limits of a six-foot nylon
lead, the next step will be enforcing the heel command.
As we are all anxious to have him retrieve, we work with him about ten minutes a day on this task. We have a cloth ball that has either pheasant wings or grouse wings attached with rubber bands. He starts from a sit, the ball is thrown about 15 feet, then given the retrieve command. He has picked up on this and is very eager to please. Remember that Harley is still very young for this, so we only do this once a day for ten minutes or less. More of this activity would probably turn him off from the task at hand or over work him.
Some Add Comments:
Since Harley is going to hunt and retrieve for us we do not play tough of war or fetch as a game, the only time he retrieves is during these ten-minute stints. We watch him very carefully when in the house to curb his chewing, which we have been successful at stopping.
Commands he knows at 14 weeks:
I will be adding articles as we progress through the training feel free to email us with comments and suggestions, we are looking forward to get Harley on the pheasant fields and duck ponds of the Northwest. See You there!!