How to Train Your Lab to Hunt
Like most things you endeavor to achieve, there are some things that you just need to know to help you make the right decisions on your journey. This category addresses topics that will help with your training and enhance the overall experience.
Our dogs bond with us in many ways including love, attention and security. In the relationship between trainers/hunters and their dogs, a critical connection is trust.
The command NO is your friend and your first line of defense. Extend this lesson to virtually everything. Stop the dog from doing the bad thing and then command it to do the right thing.
Often times it is easier to absorb short sentences that encourage time and again re-reads.
Training with an experienced retriever can be a great teaching aid. You have another dog to show your dog what he is to mimic. Just be sure the older dog is good at what he does, is not sloppy and is well behaved.
Professional gun dog trainers are the single biggest reason we have so many outstanding hunting dogs. But most Ducks Unlimited members who own retrievers do not use the services of a professional trainer.
You love your lab and provide him with a happy and fulfilling life. But if you want to inspire the true purpose of his being, teach him to retrieve; really retrieve. Even if just for the fun of it.
Helping you train your lab and learning the game is a meaningful pursuit for kids of any age; even if he/she has no inclination or interest in actual hunting, now or in the future.