Homer Dog Training

Training Homer has been a lot of fun, but it hasn’t been all peaches and cream. Like you I’m not training hunting dogs for a living or field trials. I just wanted a competent retriever that could be handled to a fall, not go broke or spending all day training him. Being a first time trainer I made mistakes that caused set backs .If you follow the dog training DVD’s I recommend so heavily on this blog, your troubles will be few and far between.

My biggest mistakes came when I tried to jump ahead or extend Homer’s distances too quickly. What I’ve learned is 99.9% of “Homers” difficulties were actually my bad training. I wanted a “Master Dog” in 6 months. This lack of patience and not thoroughly completing each step of training is what caused the problems. Here are 10 quick tips to help avoid problems training your gun dog.

• Be consistent train your dog daily and have fun with your dog.
• Keep daily dog training sessions short,15- 30 minutes a day Over training can burn you and your dog out.
• Keep your dog training sessions simple when working on something new. Success builds confidence in your dog.
• Focus on one thing a training session.
• Be patient, dogs learn through consistent repetition.. just because he did a task twice in a row doesn’t mean he fully “get’s it” and you should move ahead.
• Always finish you dog training sessons with “Fun Bumpers”.
• Never, never , ever use your electronic training collar to “punish” your dog.
• Try to train your dog in the type of terrain/cover you normally hunt once a week
• Stay calm during training sessions, If you get frustrated QUIT for the day.
• Always end the dog training session with your dog wanting more.

I hope these tips help you avoid some of the bird dog training problems I created with Homer. Homer comes from such excellent breeding, that sometimes he learned in spite of me. Once I learned to calm down and have fun, I was amazed at how fast Homer learned things. If you get stuck go back and review the DVD’s again. Sometimes I had to watch them a few times before I “got it”

Joe Dynarski