# Training timeline



## jeff788 (Aug 7, 2009)

I'll be bringing my first hunting dog home at the end of January, a female DD. I've been researching this purchase for a few years now, and I'm really looking forward to it, but I wanted to throw a few questions out there for you guys. 

Over the last few years I've been reading a lot of books on hunting dog training. I've found that there seem to be two distinct schools of thought as to when various aspects of training should be done. Most sources seem to agree that exposing a young dog to game is critical, so I'm definitely planning on that. Where the books seem to differ significantly is on obedience training. Some books say that you absolutely MUST begin teaching a dog to heel, sit, come, etc. at a fairly young age (12-16 weeks). Others say that you absolutely must NOT put any kind of pressure on a dog until after its first hunting season, or else you'll break the dog's spirit and enthusiasm. They emphasize strictly building your dog's hunting desire and natural instincts during its first year. I've read the DD Puppy Manual and the author's seem, with a few exceptions, to be mostly in the first camp (early obedience training). To the other DD owners out there, what have you found works best with these dogs? I understand that the pace of any training program should be adapted to an individual dog, but what I'm trying to decide is when I should start the various obedience aspects of the training.

Thanks in advance for you're help, and I'm sure this is the first of many questions to follow.


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## ScottyP (Sep 12, 2007)

Teaching obedience doesn't have to put pressure on a pup. Check out this e-book about training with markers: http://leerburg.com/pdf/markers-clickers.pdf The author does a great job of explaining how to marker train a puppy without pressure or leash corrections. I don't know how anyone thinks they could live with a pup for a year without teaching it basic commands like sit, down, stay, etc. and how to behave on leash.

I just brought home an 8 week old pup 1 week ago. She is a pembroke corgi, and while she is not a hunting breed she is from the herding group and has pretty high drives. In 1 week she has learned sit, down, and hand touch using the marker training technique. She has not had any potty accidents, has stopped whining in her crate, and is getting a bit better about chewing on us (her little teeth hurt!). A pup doesn't have to be put under pressure to learn that if it wants good things like treats and positive attention, it needs to figure out what you want it to do.

I have a 13 year old lab who is the greatest dog I ever had but I feel bad when I think back on how I trained her. Lots of unnecessary yelling, corrections, and poor communication between handler and dog. It is by dumb luck that she turned out as sweet as she did (only dog I have ever trusted to have the run of the house when I am gone).

Good luck with your pup! BTW, will she be inside with you or out in a kennel?


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## Packfish (Oct 30, 2007)

Have a buddy who has a DD who is now just over a year old- what a hunting machine- he went with the school of thought that he was not going to put the demands on it that you would a predominately house dog- sure it knows what is expected of it and it now knows stay - heal and keep the heck off the furniture- mostly he spend the time and put it in the field and on birds thru out it's first year
again what a hunting machine it is.


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## ddhunter (Jul 17, 2011)

I used clicker training with my DD for sit, stay and come. He has more drive than you could imagine and still listens. This was his first year hunting at 8 months and he has brought ducks, geese, pheasant, quail and a lot of chukar to the bag. I looked at it in the mind set of she is going to be tested at a year, if you can get a jump start on the training with out pressure why not.


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## jeff788 (Aug 7, 2009)

Thanks for the replies, and I'll definitely check out that e-book. We plan on having our pup inside quite a bit, but also to spend some time in a kennel. Our plan is to have her inside (in an exercise pen or utility room or crate when we can't give her our full attention to help with house training) for the first month or so, then I plan to get one of the Scott's above ground kennels and split her time between the house and the kennel. 

I've read about clicker training a bit and it sounds interesting. My hesitancy to exclusively use clickers or other positive reinforcement has been some material that I've read (can't remember the source) that opined that if you train a dog with strictly positive reinforcement or treats then it will only obey a command if the possible treat/reward is more enticing than disobeying the command. I think the example given was that if your dog is chasing a cat toward a busy road and you tell the dog to whoa/down, the dog may decide that chasing a cat is more appealing than whatever reward/treat it was trained with. I commonly hear a similar argument for forced fetching instead of relying on a dog's natural desire to retrieve. What has been your experience with clicker training? Is a clicker-trained dog as reliable as a dog that has been trained with more forceful techniques? For that matter, I'm wondering if a good middle ground is to use both: teach a command with clickers while the dog is young, then once the dog is older and can handle more pressure to make the command more strictly obeyed with a choker or e-collar. What do you guys think?


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## TEX-O-BOB (Sep 12, 2007)

All dogs mature at different rates. Some are very bold and ready for early training, some are not. I think it's very important to let a pup be a pup. teach him basic commands (it's name, kennel, the release command, and Aaaacht!! for anything offensive like jumping on you, chewing on things etc.) Past that leave the strict obedience training on the back burner for now. Keep the pup active with all sorts of interactions with humans, other dogs, and of course, lots of birds. At a certain age, might be six months, might be a year, your pup is going to start giving you less and less regard and start showing you more independence. This usually coincides with getting into more trouble. When a pup starts "showing you their ass" it's time to put the obedience screws to em. Take them off birds and get them broke, force fetched and minding you to a fault. Then take them back into the field for final polish work on birds. After that, it's only a matter of hunting them a lot and keeping the training fresh with continued drills and reminders.


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## ScottyP (Sep 12, 2007)

The e-book I linked in my post came from the leerburg website. Ed Frawley, who owns leerburg kennels and runs the site is a big proponent of training with clickers or markers, but he will be the first to say that you will come to a point in your training that 'proofing' commands like a recall (when your dog is chasing that cat into the road) will require corrections. He has done training dvd's on e-collar and prong collar training as a follow up to the clicker training. The idea is to teach the commands with clicker training and eventually proof the commands with the other training tools so that your dog will obey under any distraction level. While still a puppy, you are best off to use the positive training methods only and made sure your pup is not put in the position where it can get into trouble. Keep her on leash around strange people and dogs, escape proof your yard, etc. Leave the 'proofing' and correcting until the dog matures.


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## ddhunter (Jul 17, 2011)

Your last comment about a good middle ground has been spot on for me. The clicker was to encourage and promote the action when young and now he gets the pressure. Probably more than he wants due to the fact that he is pretty bull headed but he has impressed me thus far. @14 weeks he was coming to me on command in a busy dog park up in WA.


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## Greenhead_Slayer (Oct 16, 2007)

I have an 11 month old black lab that I used the basic command training with a clicker and it worked well. We started her young, 12 weeks-ish?, with just using the clicker. It worked out wonderful, we replaced the clicker with just basic positive reinforcement. Once she had it down pat with or without the clicker we collar conditioned her and it was a really smooth transition. I'm no dog trainer by any means, but I'd definitely use a clicker again.


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## Sprig Kennels (Jan 13, 2009)

you can start to teach obedience at any age really. i have litterally started with 7 week old pups and had great success. my philosophy is the earlier you start, the less bad habits you have to break later by not teaching the dog early. dogs are learning and soaking up info from day 1 whether we are "training" them or not. i believe by starting early you dont let the dog learn bad habits from no training. the only real problem with any training method is the trainer, usually the trainer tries to "keep up with the jones" so they put more pressure on the dog because it isnt responding as fast to the training. you can teach a 7 week old or a 7 year old obedience but the pressure comes from the trainer, not the training program per say. and for hunting training, i want a dog obedience trained before i start that training because once a dog starts to get super birdy and bird crazy it is so much more harder to handle with no obedience training behind it. dogs are only a product of what we teach them and how we treat them.


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## KennyC (Apr 28, 2010)

I did the clicker with my Golden and really only used it to associate what I wanted from him. This is called loading. You then move on to some place the dog doesn't see you and hit the clicker, if the dog comes to you and does the command (sit) he/she is loaded. At that point you will not have to stay with the clicker everytime. Slowly stop using the clicker and tell the dog the command but only once. If the dog will not react turn away and come back in a min or so. try not to associate 2 commands at the same time with the clicker. A whistle can be used in the same fashon. I had awsome luck with my Golden.


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