Went for a visit to see my Keely at school. Thought I would share a little video. I think she is coming along well. Hopefully she will be coming home soon for a stretch. This is her doing some retriever stuff.

http://s64.photobucket.com/albums/h165/wpevey/Keely08/?action=view&current=Keelysnow08044.flv

tried to fix it hope it works

Nice retrieving.  It is so much fun to work with these guys and see the light bulbs go on.  Have fun!!  When does your Keely finish school?

Thanks TB, Not sure exactly when she will finish, trainer thinks some time in early or middle may. She will come home then for me to work with her and sharpen her up with drills. Then she will go back to work on her pointer training since right now its all retriever work.

I see your point pixie however my situation is a bit unique.  I have limited options. The way we are going is the best way to get where I want to go with her, trainer and I had a long disscussion about what I wanted from her before we ever started training.

1. Not really any pointer specific trainers in SE Louisana (this trainer is only one in driving distance w/ pointing dog experience)

2. arnt very many quail left in Louisiana except on released preserves, which this guy has permanent access to. so she will be a duck dog first and pointer second unfortunatly.

3. I wouldnt do both at same time, talk about too much pressure on a young dog, IMO trying to do retriever and pointer stuff at the same time is crazy pressure. better to do one to a point then do the other. less confusion for the dog that way than switching back and forth all the time.

I would be concerned if she was behaving differently but She takes pressure very very well and recovers immediatly, after all our training sessions we let her run the fields and ponds, off collar no pressure. She points every duck, mocking bird, or sparrow she finds, comes back on recall, tracks etc. I can easily see that steadying her to shot and fall will not be a problem once her basics in retrieving are done all her pointing desire and drive is still there. I would be more afraid that if I had done pointing first then all the pressure of retriever second would have hurt her more. And that has been my trainers experinece in some cases.

On a side note her pointer training will be this summer as well (after a break) and he told me from watching her that she will have no problems doing both and that she will transition from one to other easily and be as good at them both as I am willing to make her.

Being a novice amateur yourself it's pretty rude and arrogant to tell another owner that he and his professional trainer don't know what they are doing.  By your own admission you've owned and trained what 2 GSP's now?

I wouldn't approach it the same way either but as long as he's happy with his dog and it's progress who are we to judge?

wildrose,
It may have sounded a bit arrogant but I guess that depends on your perpsective. I did say it was my opinion and this is a public forum, if someone doesn't want to hear a flip side to their post maybe they shouldn't post.


Not by my admission,I've trained several dogs for myself and a couple for others.



Wpevey,

I feel for you situation and you did choose the right direction in training.
 

I didn't say to work on steadiness at the same time,just field work,let the dog work on nose,search,using the wind and cooperation a bit to release the pressure,having some birds in the field wouldn't add much presure at all,it would keep the drive high. She already is a pointing fool so you should have no issues when the summer comes around.
IF you were to have chosen field work at this age and waited for FF until after then I say the dog would be at the stage of basic steadiness.Teaching FF and steadines at the same time is a lot of presssure for dogs at any age.
There does seem to be a lot of pressure going on during your dog's training, I would make sure she gets a lot of free time in the field to brush it off and to keep a high prey drive.


 

Good read.  I was thinking the same thing.  However I know some really good lab trainers and have observed one of them for several months.
 

Since this dog is going to be a retreiver/duck dog primarily he is starting her just as you would a lab.

In the end, he's probably going to end up with a dog that won't get out of gun range or have much style left, but again, his dog, his trainer, and his goals are not our's.

That's right, on that much we agree.  If you don't want to hear the flip side...  Don't post in a public forum.

No it's an accurate assessment of the dog's body language in the video based on my observations of several thousand dogs over the years.

I average starting 30-50 dogs a year.  I will judge as many as 500-1,000 dogs a year at trials.  I will hunt behind another thirty to a hudred different new dogs each year.

That gives me a pretty broad base for comparison.

As I explained to him in reply to his very nice PM, this is not the approach I would take, but then I'm not training my dogs to be 90% duck dogs and 10% upland.  I'm not a retriever trainer either which his trainer is. I prefer to bring the pointing dog out first, and polish up the retrieve later if there's not a significant problem such as little or not retrieving desire shown early.

What we do know is he is happy so far with his dog and her progress. Whether it's what we want, or desire is really irrelevant. I know a lot of Pointing dog people that never want to see a dog out of gun range. Not my cup of tea, but then it's not my problem either. He's happy so I'll be happy for him.

If he's back in a year asking how to expand his dog's range and indpendance I'll offer my thoughts.

That's the nature of the type of training program his trainer is using.  It's what they want for retrievers.  That's the primary intended use for the dog in the future.

Just not what we as pointing dog people are used to seeing.

I see it for months at a time when my friend who is an extremely successful retriever trial/hunt test trainer is down here with me in the winter.

The purpose of this type of training is to eliminate indpendence and make the dog totally repsonsive to command in a "push buttom" sort of manner.

With a trial or test Lab you have to be able to send them on a directline of up to 500 yards on a blind.  Even a couple of degrees from that line and you can be done.

The game the dog is playing here is practicing mulitple marks for retrieve where the dog will be required eventually to retrieve up to five marked bumpers each in the order they were thrown.

It's a whole different world.

Thanks for all the discussion guys/gals. Regardless of what your opinions are its all good info for me. As I told WR, I read some where that the only thing 2 dog trainers can agree on is that the 3rd is doing it all wrong.

From my own observations as well as my trainers own statement, Keely takes pressure very, very well. She bounces back immediatly. That training session is the most pressure Ive seen on her (even more than the FF) and watching her body language it was a concern for me too. I however am new to dog training so I'm not one to know how much is too much. The trainer only gave her a short session, simply to display the drills he has been doing with her and said that right now is difficult for her b/c its alot of stop and go, so she is having to think to put it all together, hand signals, whistle, retrieve, etc... I was also a huge distraction for her standing there, she wanted to see daddy " align="absMiddle" border="0" src="/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/blue/emoticons/smile.gif" />. If its the same this weekend then I'd be more concerned, I want her to enjoy what she does and as soon as she is off lead and not training she is her normal self so I think that is good. Also she has only been there for 2 months.

anyhow here is a short vid (could only get tail end of her chasing the ducks) of her after training and a couple of pics. WR Ill post some pre training pics of her pointing later after I get to work.

http://s64.photobucket.com/albums/h165/wpevey/Keely08/?action=view&current=Keelysnow08047.flv

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