Rip Up That Calendar and Hide the Clock

There is no date or time that dictates when to teach your dog to do certain drills or take him to the next level of a particular skill. I’m not talking about basic obedience. That stuff starts on day one. Well maybe day three with a new puppy!

When I started training, I read how-to books of several well respected pros. One said don’t do anything serious until the dog is at least a certain age. Well, when you’ve owned several gun dogs you sadly come to realize that you don’t have them forever; sometimes not even for ‘just a long time.’ I lost a prize lab at four years old to pancreatic cancer. I’ve had some miss full seasons and some whose careers were cut short due to injury. And the bodies of some simply break down before you’re ready to stop hunting with them. Thankfully, I didn’t lose even more time waiting for some arbitrary starting age.

Training mostly yourself, you’re not going to have a no slip retriever at age one or two so get that out of your head.

But if you approach it right, you can have some great times in the training field and in the duck blind with a young dog. Just be sure you don’t get ahead of yourself by attempting double blind retrieves before he does easy single blinds; or teaching advance hand signals before he sits to the whistle, and such. You’re the brains, use them.

By and large, it comes down to maturity. Your dog must be mature enough to perform a drill with focus and deal with correction; often times firm correction. And of course there is more impactful training like force fetch, ecollar conditioning and introduction to the gun that are without question maturity based.

I recall boarding a young Ember with Dave Trahan when Ruth and I went on a vacation and Dave and I decided he would introduce Ember to the gun. When I picked her up, excited that gun introduction would be complete, Dave said he started but stopped. His reason was simple. After spending some time with her, he didn’t feel she was mature enough to deal with it. I will always be thankful to him for that discretion.

Initial training and advancement depend more on the maturity level of the dog than his biological age.

How quick he learns and how well he retains depend on his mental development. And every dog learns in different ways and at various times. Get in tune with your puppy or your started dog right away. If you spend the right kind of time with him and pay attention, you’ll come to sense what’s in his head.

All that being said, don’t use a perceived lack of maturity as an excuse to treat your dog like a puppy forever. Get in tune with your lab’s maturity level and let it guide you. Don’t rush it. Don’t delay it. Your ProCoach can be a great asset with this.

Train like your hunting depends on it.