I posted an intro way back when Bella was around 12 weeks old. She's come such a long way since then and is now 6 months old. We do a young gundog focused class with her as a follow up to our puppy gundog focused class. She's pretty good retrieving a dummy, almost never dropping, chewing or running off with it. We've introduced her a few times in class to cold bird and the first time she was very unsure and yesterday at only her second introduction to it, she picked the duck right up and with some work brought it to me. My husband told me when he was walking her the other day, she pointed beautifully at a pheasant in the underbrush. I wish I had been there! I have been a little lax doing daily training exercises with her, so her stay is not great. She's a spaniel, so she struggles mightily with calm and steady. She's also starting to want more freedom to explore so I'm using a dragline with her more and more and calling her back frequently while out on walks. She loves everyone and everything so if she sees another dog she'll be off. We're taking her for a weekend away to visit friends in Germany so I'm now working with her every day to hopefully get her a little more attentive and calm in the presence of other people and dogs before the trip. Crossing my fingers....Luckily these are all friends with high energy hunting or herding breeds so know what it's like to live through that hyperactive puppyhood. The biggest issue I have and I'm not sure how or if I personally can fix it.. It's responding to other people's commands. My husband is pretty terrible about asking once and giving her the opportunity to respond before repeating and repeating...so for him and most everyone else sit, come, and down are more like "if I feel like it and there's nothing more fun to do" he and other people frequently just say things much differently. I say sit fairly quietly, crisply and short....no siiiiiiit......or doooooooooown.... it's sit and down. Do I need to start clicker training him ?
Sounds like things are going really well - but clicker training the husband might be even more challenging than a Spaniel (apologies to husbands out there). Hope the trip goes really well. It's good that they seem like a sympathetic audience
My OH responds well to the clicker and bits of chocolate brownie. It's going well, even though I say so myself....
I gave up on the husband years ago........ He just does his own thing Glad things are going well for you. jac
my dogs ignore my husband anyway so its all good. Bella sounds great though, bet you all have a great time
I wouldn't worry too much about the husband. If you're doing the bulk of the training, then she'll learn that she needs to respond to you in a different manner to how she responds to your husband. My two certainly do!
