Best not Try This In The Winter, But Once They Can Swim It Looks Fun

When you first introduce your gundog to water, it can be a joy and a frustration.  You have a dog that should in all intense and purposes love the water.  You are expecting your dog to jump right in and start swimming but then, when you finally get out to the water; your dog not only refuses to go in but also behaves as though you are trying to dip him in acid.

This is where the frustration can come from.  You want your dog to enjoy himself but you also want him to enjoy himself in the water.  Still, some gundogs are just not willing to get into the water and this can put many of them at risk for a negative experience.  Some owners, especially novice owners, will simply place their puppy in water, regardless of their dog’s stress.  This should never be done since it has the potential to ruin your gundog.

Instead, introducing your gundog takes the same patience and fortitude that introducing your gundog to anything in their training.  If they don’t go in the first time, just try again and again until they go into the water.

Even with that thought in mind, there are a number of ways that you can introduce your gundog to water to make it both enjoyable and easy.

Use an older dog.

If you can, bring along an older dog that loves water.  This will give your young gundog someone to learn from. When the older dog goes in and is enjoying himself, your younger one will begin to wander in simply to be with the older dog.  J

Start in a lake or other slow moving (still) water

Starting in moving water can be a big mistake for several reasons. First, the gundog puppy could be pulled under by a strong current or taken too far downstream.  Safety is important when introducing your gundog to water.

Second, the gundog puppy may be more hesitant about entering water that is moving. This can create a negative experience from the start and will make other trips to water much harder.

Lastly, your gundog puppy may become distracted by the noise of the water and will have more difficulty focusing on you and also on what you are trying to do.

Make it a game

The last tip that I have for introducing the gundog puppy to water is to make it fun and make it a game.  When you puppy first gets to the water, throw out a dummy for him to retrieve, if he does retrieve, a few inches from the shoreline.  Your puppy will only get his feet wet but if he wants the dummy, he will have to touch the water.

When he is comfortable retrieving from a few inches away, throw the dummy a little further.  Go slow with this process and make sure that your puppy is comfortable with the new depth. Before you know it, your gundog puppy will be more than happy to dive in after anything you throw out.

It is important when you do introduce your gundog to water that you never correct or punish him for not going in the water. This is a different feel, smell and overall experience for your dog so let him dictate the length of time it takes.  If you do, you will be overjoyed with the result.

For a overview of training why not try our beginners guide to gundog dvd avaliable at amazon.com and amazon.co.uk

Using Discipline Is Still Hard For Me With Charlie

You know, when people are training their dogs, they are often left wondering one thing; how do they punish their gun dogs? There are so many trainers out there and so many different styles of training that it can be rather confusing. If you listen to one trainer, you should never discipline your dog, another trainer may suggest using a squirt bottle filled with water or vinegar and another may approach training in a “spare the rod, spoil the dog,” type of mentality.

Thankfully, as gundog owners, we can really decide on what works best with our dogs, although I would never recommend or endorse the latter method of disciplining. Instead, my approach to correcting your gundog is much nicer and can be very easy to do both on the field and off the field and in this article, I will look at how to discipline your gundog so you see results without damaging the bond you have with your dog.

Regardless of how good your gundog is, there will be periods of time that you will need to either correct or discipline your gundog. While it may be more desirable to ignore a negative behavior, it is not the best for the dog and any behaviors that are ignored will lead to bigger problems for your gundog.

When you do go to discipline your gundog there are a few things that you need to consider.

1. Make sure you use an even tone. Many people make the mistake of yelling at their dog. This does nothing but make the dog cower from you. The dog is not learning to stop a behavior; instead they are learning to fear you. Instead of yelling, use a firm voice that is slightly louder than your normal speaking voice. This is the voice that should mean business and it should have a touch of harshness to it.

2. Don’t use bad dog. One habit that we always seem to fall in is using the term “bad dog.” Stop using it because many times you dog is not being “bad” it is simply doing something that is natural to it. The main reason behind using your voice is to break the behavior. For this reason, use a word such as “no,” so your dog will stop and look at you.

3. Never use come before you discipline. If you want to break the command of come, then by all means, ask your dog to come to you before you discipline. Remember we want to reward our dogs when they come to us so if your dog needs to be disciplined, you go and get him instead of calling him.

4. Don’t hit your dog. Hitting your dog never solves anything and will usually just cause more damage than if you had ignored the behavior. To make it a physical correction, calmly take the dog by the scruff of the neck and firmly pull on it. This should not be a shake but just a simple pull that alerts the dog that you are not happy. Do not hurt your dog when you do this.

5. Stay calm. Lastly, make sure you stay calm when you discipline your dog. If you are waving your arms and behaving in an angry way, your dog is going to feel really threatened. This will cause your dog to be scared of you and will damage your bond with your gundog.

Remember that when you do discipline your gundog that it is short. It shouldn’t be a punishment that will last for a long time but more of a quick correction that is forgotten by you shortly after it is done. Also, make sure that you only discipline your gundog if you absolutely need to. The best training only uses correction less than 5% of the time and the rest of the training is done with positive

If you have not already got our DVD you can get some great tips on discipline there

To Buy From Amazon.com click here Gundog DVD

To Buy From Amazon.co.uk click here Gundog DVD

If You Keep Your Gundog In Your House You Need Housetraining

Some Gundog Owners dont House train their Dogs, Ron Never housetrains, But I believe even if you keep your dog in a kennel you should housetrain any dog.

I alwayslove having a puppy at home and always keep him or her in my house but one thing that I don’t love is having to housetrain them. Give me any other training and I will usually be right and ready to get started but then again, there isn’t a lot of middle of the night training sessions to deal with when I am doing other training.

Not that housetraining is that hard and it can be done very easily if you do one thing; train yourself before you train the puppy. Generally, the most problems that you are going to run into with training is going to be more about mistakes that you made and less about the puppy so it is important that you really take the time to properly train your gundog puppy.

Before we look at a few tips, I would like to mention three points that should be in your mind when you begin training. These are:

1. Train according to age: One of the biggest mistakes that I see is the lack of training that is applicable to your puppy’s age. First, you should always start training young, usually when your puppy arrives home at 8 weeks and it should never be put off until your puppy is older than 12. The best window of opportunity is between 8 and 12 weeks of age. Next, make sure that you are setting everything up according to their age. The younger they are, the shorter period of time your puppy can hold their bladder. The general rule of thumb is a half hour to an hour for every month of age. So a puppy that is two months old will hold their bladder for one to two hours. This is important during the night or while you are at work so that you can have someone come and let your little gundog puppy out in the middle of the day.

2. Keep an eye on your pup: Another problem with housetraining is not keeping an eye on your puppy. This is usually when the puppy goes off and has an accident inside. Basically, if your puppy is up, keep an eye on her. If you are too busy to watch her for a period of time, either put her in her kennel or leash her to your belt (this only works if you are sitting, such as working on the computer). When she wakes up, or starts to sniff around, you can take her right outside to go to the washroom.

3. Create a routine: If you want housetraining to work, you will need to create a routine for it. First, make sure that you are getting up, and going to bed at the same time. This will help your gundog puppy set her schedule as well. Next, feeding and watering should also be done on a schedule. While you may offer water all the time when you gundog is older, when they are puppies, only put it out for certain periods in the day (make sure she is getting enough water however). Free feeding and watering can be the death of training and it is really hard to determine when your puppy really needs to go. Also make sure that you have a set routine at night and that you slowly begin to stretch out the hours at night so eventually, your gundog puppy will be able to sleep through the night without having to go. Lastly, always use the same door, and the same routine when you go outside. This will teach your gundog to go for a certain door instead of just wandering around the house when she has to empty her blader.

Whew, those tips were really big but they are the basis of housetraining your gundog. The rest is actually just a matter of individual choice and will be done at your gundog puppy’s own speed and your ability to train them.

To properly train your dog, you should do the following:

• Always take your gundog puppy outside after she has eaten. The length of time between eating and emptying their bowels will be different with each dog so really pay attention to this. I had one dog that wouldn’t eliminate until 45 minutes after eating, even at 8 weeks old and another that emptied their bowels within 5 minutes of eating. The lesson here is the golden rule of “20 minutes” does not apply to most dogs.

• Never punish your gundog if they had an accident in the house. This does nothing for the training and may actually ruin the bond you are building with her. No bond, and there is no sense even starting any gundog training after this.

• If your dog is urinating (or other) in the house, break the behavior. This means that you either say, “NO!” loudly or you clap your hands. Basically, you want to startle enough for your gundog puppy to stop urinating. Once she does, pick her up immediately and take her right outside. When she gets there and continues to do her business, praise her for being such a good dog. (One thing I want to point out is that you should never overuse NO. If you are going to be using no in your other training, don’t use it for now. Any loud command that stops the behavior will work.)

And that is all there is to housetraining. If you want your dog to eliminate on command, which I do with all my dogs, wait until the dog is in the act of defecating (not urinating) and then say, “Do your business,) or whatever the command will be, and then praise the dog for doing it. This won’t teach your dog to go if they don’t have to but it can be a relief to use the command when you having been standing outside for 20 minutes waiting for your gundog to find that perfect spot.

I am in the process of launching a new site selling dog products please visit my dog website in a couple of months time.

When Your Gundog Is Young Do Not Rush Their Training

The first time I decided to train a gundog, I realized that it wasn’t an easy task. I mean, sure, the training was actually quite easy and the dog took to all of it without too much difficulty and I had a lot of fun training but I didn’t have a gundog overnight. What I learned with my first gundog was that if you want a properly trained gundog without any problems, then you should expect it to take a fair amount of time.

But often that is easier said than done and everyone, me included, would love to have a gundog overnight. The reality is that all of the best trained gundogs were not trained overnight and if you talk to many handlers, they still aren’t fully trained, even after 2, 3, or even 5 years working in the field. Gundog training is something that occurs over the life of the dog and while you may have a fully trained gundog at two years of age (or younger), you should constantly be working your dog to keep them in the best condition both physically and mentally.

Okay, I had a little of a rant there but the main point that I am trying to stress is that you should never rush your gundog’s training. Generally, when a gundog is being trained, there are a lot of levels and a lot of steps that need to be worked through. Rushing through one stage to get to the other can cause a lot of problems and these are simple:

1. Your gundog is unable to perform tasks in the field. It doesn’t matter how well a dog does something the first time in a training session, if you have rushed it, your dog may not be able to do that task in the field. This isn’t because they aren’t listening but is more because the excitement has reduced your dog’s concentration and your dog will have a hard enough time remembering a well enforced and practiced command that they will be lost on commands that weren’t reinforced.

2. Your gundog won’t listen. While this may seem the same as one, it isn’t. There are commands a gundog won’t know if they aren’t reinforced but there are also commands a gundog won’t listen to if the training was rushed.

3. Your bond with your gundog is affected. Rushing through training can ruin the bond that you created with your gundog. Usually rushed training is more work and has more negative reinforcement than positive. If your gundog doesn’t trust you then he will not take your lead or commands in the field.

4. It is harder to retrain. If you miss any steps in your rush to have a trained gundog, it can be next to impossible to reteach them. Once your gundog has established a way to do something, he will not want to go back to do it right the first time. This means that it is very difficult to break bad habits and, trust me; there will be a number of bad habits arising from rushed training.

All of these problems can mean two things; one, your gundog may be ruined and no matter how much training you reinvest into your dog, they will never perform to the fullest of their potential and two, you will become very frustrated with everything, which will further hurt your relationship with your gundog.

When you do train your gundog, take the time to do so and make sure that you train according to your dog’s schedule, not yours and definitely not the hunting season schedule. If you miss a season, don’t fret because it will come around again very quickly.

Make sure you start training when your gundog is about eight to twelve weeks but make sure that it is simply a fun way to pass the time. At this age it should never be about work. Also keep the training to short periods. A good rule of thumb is 15 minute sessions, one to two times per day. You can do this every day (optimal) but make sure it is no fewer than 3 days a week.

And remember, some gundogs pick this up within weeks, while others can take months to be properly trained. There is no sense becoming frustrated and it makes even less sense to rush it.

If You haven’t seen our Gundog training DVD which Ron shows you how to train a gundog, Go to Amazon Now to grab your copy

For amazon.co.uk Gundog DVD

For amazon.com US Gundog DVD

A DVD Which I Shot With Ron Mann Which Is For Sale At Amazon.com

There’s nothing worse than a well trained working gundog going off the rails, One season she is the best dog you could hope for the next she seems useless. What you don’t realise its not the dogs fault it’s the owners.

At the beginning of the season when I go shooting, Charlie always excels or he seems to when I compare him with some of the other dogs on their first outing of the season.

The problem stems from leaving your working gundog to do as they wish out of season then expecting them to listen to you after a 6 month break. No chance!

What I recommend you do, is what I do with Charlie. At least twice a week I take Charlie out and make him listen to me. He has to follow every command as if he is on a shoot. It’s just me and him for a hour or two, no distractions.

The rest of the time I let him play with the kids and generally have a good time, but when we have our 1-2 hour training sessions he does as I say. I find twice is better than once a week, but three times is not necessary.

You also sometimes have problems with younger dogs which seem really obedient at 4-6 months then seem to get more headstrong.

What you must do to correct this is go back in your training by approximately 2-3 weeks and go over things he already knows. You should find this helps. Always remember you are the master, if you let your working gundog think he can boss you he will. If he gets away with it from your wife, husband or partner, he will try it with you.

If it become a serious problem you need to be the only person who has contact with your hunting friend for a couple of weeks, then after this make sure you let your wife, husband or partner see how you train it. If you both act the same way it will stop being a problem.

A good way for readers who share the ownership of their working gundog, to avoid ever having this problem is to train their dog together, I always advise a dog to only have one trainer as having two can get confusing.

Did you ever take as much notice of your parents as your teacher when learning maths? I Doubt it. Did you ever take as much notice of a supply teacher as your proper teacher? I doubt also. I could keep going but I think you get the picture. But if you had 2 teachers teaching you together did you listen to booth? Yes because they were both singing from the same hymn sheet.

This works the same for hunting dogs, and all dogs, so if you insist that two of you teach your dog, 70% of the time, try to train your gundog together. If it’s a refresher course you are after you may want to have a look at our Working Gundog training DVD.

I filmed Ron Mann (Professional Gundog Trainer) demonstrating everything you need to train or retrain your gundog to expert status. To find out more click on Gun Dog Training DVD