Hi, our Lab, is now 8 months old. He's done three courses of puppy training which we are happy with, something we never did with our previous dogs. These lessons have helped us as well as Oi! and I honestly believe we have bonded well. I understand Labs are very intelligent dogs and without stimulation can be challenging. He will never be used as a gun dog, but we want him to be happy and stimulated. Our lifestyle means we spend a lot of time with him, will this be enough for him or should I be considering gun dog training?
Hi Mick, Gundog training is just one way of keeping a Lab happy and stimulated. There are lots of other ways to spend time with your Lab that will stimulate their brain. There are some ideas for games, here, for example: https://www.thelabradorsite.com/4-fun-games-to-play-with-your-labrador/ As long as he gets plenty of exercise, plenty of your company, and plenty of time to use his brain, you'll be meeting his needs
Thank you so much for that link. I will start to do some of those tricks. We did one of them, (the statue) during one of the training courses I did with him.
If you and your lab enjoy it, why not? Maybe enter him in competitions too and make things even more exciting.
I'm a little late to this party, but I know other people might click on this to get ideas. I have let Coda try a number of different things. She LOVES agility (don't start high impact too early). We also recently graduated to be able to do Rally Obedience which is like competitive obedience meets dog ballet. It's great for her focus and is fun for us to learn together. She was a natural at scent work as well. I put her in a tricks class that was HILARIOUS, but now we can High 5 every time she learns a new thing or does something exceptional. There are so many options for fun things to do together. We wear each other out lol. We of course do advanced (+) reinforcement obedience training as well, which is super stimulating for her. ALL of this is (+) reinforcement just to be clear.
