Jeff Smith's dog training diary Hershey enjoys some training. Click here for latest diary updates 4-8-2004 Went up to Storm Mountain Kennels to meet Craig and pick up the puppy. Pretty uneventful other than the weather had something to be desired. While I was up in Bigfork I was able to see both the Sire and the Dam of this little girl. The male is pretty big, maybe 85 pounds and the female is a little smaller in the 65-pound range. Looking at this girl I would say that she should end up being pretty good sized. Both the Sire and Dam were nice friendly dogs. The pup had a pretty good night the first night slept. 4-9-2004 In between the rain I got out to the retriever center so the dogs could get a good run and to let the pup start to get to know the other members of the pack so to speak. She shows me some pretty good courage and a lot of spunkiness. Didn't take her 5 minutes to get right in the middle of it all. Got a chance to take a few pictures and tossed a small bumper for her which she figured out pretty quick was something that she needed to carry around. 4-10-2004 Had a picnic test to attend at the retriever club. the little girl got to sit in the back of the truck with the other dogs and see and listen to the sounds. She liked it. During lunch time we had a puppy stakes. There were about 5 or 6 pups there. What we do is go out about 20 yards and shoot a starter pistol and toss a dead pigeon. I did not let them shoot for us just because she is so young. We can start that in a few weeks. Of all the pups out there she was by far the youngest and she did as good of a job as anyone. They tossed the pigeon for her twice and both times she went right out and fetched it up and brought it right back. Not a big deal but it showed me a lot. I am very impressed with this little girl. 4-11-2004 Since it was Easter we did not do a whole lot. Got a lot of outdoor time while doing yard work. 4-12-2004 Today was our first trip to the vet. Had a 10:00 appointment with Dr Joe Thompson at South Gate Animal vet. The little girl got the once over. Got the thumbs up on this one. We also got our 8-week shots while we were there. They sent us on our way with an appointment for May the 6th 4-16-2004 Been a good week for the little girl. We spent the week getting settled into a good solid routine. The Crate training has been good. We have not had one mistake all week. Last night was the first night that she slept through the night. Went out for the last time at about 10:30 and didn't make a peep until 6:30 AM. So we are making very good progress there. She is becoming pretty responsive the command "here" as well as "clean out" which is my command for going potty. Next week we will start working on a little light lead work. Not formal, just do a little each day to get her use to the idea of a lead. I will also start working on the Recall (here) with a 30-foot lead and some fun retrieves. This will set the stage for some of our training later on. I didn't have a very successful week getting pictures. When I had the time to take them the weather just did not seem to want to cooperate. Each time I went out to take a few it decided that it needed to rain. Maybe I can get some over the weekend if the weather settles a little. Hershey retrieves a duck. 4-17-2004 Got out for some really good training in the afternoon. Had Jeff and Wyatt to help throw so I did a lot of marking drills. This gave the little girl a change to hear some shooting and watch the dogs work. Got her pretty excited. Then at the end of the day I tossed a dead pigeon for her quite a few times. She thought that was pretty good fun. She is pretty bird crazy even at this young age. 4-18-2004 Got out in the afternoon again. This time just with Wyatt. The little girl got to hear a bunch more shooting and watched the dogs work. Tossed a duck for her at the end off the day this time. Did not worry about what she did with it after she got to it. So after I would send her I would let he r play with the bird for a minute before taking it away. I am being pretty formal at the line though. Not making her sit but I am steadying her letting the bird fall giving it 2 secs and then sending. 4-19-04 Did just a little lead work yesterday. Just for a couple minutes. Will increase that as the week goes by. Biggest thing I am working on is teaching her she is not allowed to chew on the lead. 4-24/25-2004 Hershey got to go to her first Field Test this weekend. We went to an event over in Spokane held by the Spokane Bird Dog Assoc. So Hershey got to hear all the sounds and see all the dogs. On Sunday I had her with me in the gallery watching the dogs run. The Live flyer station was just below us on the edge of a pond, maybe 50 yards away. Everytime they would toss a bird and shoot she would do everything that she could to try to get down that hill. 4-26-2004 Hershey is getting some good lead work and has for the most part stopped fighting the lead and is walking at the heel position well. Started giving her some sits this week and will get more formal with that in the next week or so. 4-28-2004 Moved Hershey to the next sized crate as she has outgrown her puppy crate. She is not going to be a puppy for much longer. She is growing so fast that that she is a little uncoordinated at the moment but that will change over the next 30 days. She got a fair amount of birds tossed for her this week and is about as birdy as a dog can be. Got her on some ducks this week, which she had no problem with other than having to give them back to me. She is very willing to try things without a lot of hesitation. She has a boldness about her that I really like. 5-1-2004 Spent some good time with the dogs out at the retriever center. It was pretty warm so I decided to see how Hershey would react to the water. Used Kali as a pick up dog and used a bumper tossing it just off the waters edge maybe a foot or so. We didn't do this a lot of time maybe 4 or 5. She would run down the waters edge toss her head around and stick one foot in then take it out and try the other front foot. I would let her mess around for just a few seconds so she did not loose focus on the bumper and then would send Kali too pick it up. There just happened to be a log just a few feet from the spot where we were working. It was about 10 to 12 inches in diameter with one end resting on the shore and the other out in the water. The last time I threw the bumper for her I toss it out in the water next to the log. Hershey figured that she could walk out the log to get the bumper and I figured that she would go out and fall off. That is just what she did went right out there and reached out and fell off the log. And she was ok with it. She was not scared, just a little put out. So she promptly exited the water shook off and went on with her business. 5-5-2004 We got to go to the Vet again for our next set of shots. Everything was great. The little girl is now up to 21.5 pounds, which is just right. Lab Pups at this age normally grow about 3 pounds a week so we are right on track there. Next appointment is the 7th of June. 5-6-2004 Field Test in Boise This weekend with the Treasure Valley Hunting Retriever Club. Will be leaving early in the AM to head down. This will give the girl a bunch more time to hear and see the sounds of hunting. 5-7-2004 Ran Hershey in her first real test. In the North American Hunting Retriever Association, the program that I run most of the time, has a stake for dogs called the "Beginner Stake" It is a real stake that gets judged. Sometime on Saturday the person running that stake came around and wanted to know if we wanted to run. So I thought, what the heck, why not. So I put down my $10 and away we went. Now understand that I normally do not have much expectation for an 11 weeks old pup. I just like to run these as they are good experience. The test consisted of 3 single marks (3 items to be retrieved, one at a time) For this test they used all pigeons. 2 of the marks were on land, the first being about 15 yards and the second about 20 to 25 yards. The first mark was in pretty open ground. The mark is thrown just like any other in testing. So there was an attraction out in the field. For these it was just a "hey there goes one" then a shot and throw. There is no question Hershey is gun conditioned at this point. The only reaction she had to a gun being shot at 15 yards was to go nuts trying to get to the bird. And get the bird she did, went right out on a nice straight line grabbed the pigeon and came right back to me. The second mark was a little longer and into just some slight cover. This one was a little harder for her but she hung in there and worked it out and ended up with a bird. Again it ended up back with me. The third mark was in running water. The mark was about 20 to 25 yards out. The line to the bird was all land except for the last 10 feet or so, which was maybe 3 or 4 inches deep. To a pup that stands 10" high at the shoulder 3 inches of water is significant. I am not sure if she even noticed that she was in water. All she really seems to notice is that bird laying out there. She did a great job with this one as well which resulted in another bird being delivered. I was pretty busy for the day and didn't really give the whole event another thought. So they caught me a little off guard when they called our name at the banquet Saturday night and awarded Hershey with her first official ribbon as a test dog. 5-11-2004 Well my scheduled training is going down the drain in the form of rain. We will have to give it a day or so to settle down so we can get back out in the field. 5-15-2004 Well between rain we have been getting out a bit and throwing the bumper around. We have been doing our lease work on a regular basis and Hershey is getting pretty comfortable walking on the lease. She is not healing mind you but is able to walk without pulling all the time. 5-18-2004 We will be off to Colorado Tomorrow night. We have a dog event to judge near Grand Junction. The time that Hershey spends on the road is good for her as far as her socialization goes. She get s to hear so many different things and see many dogs and people. 5-25-2004 Well we made it back. Had a good trip. Was awful hot and had to watch out for ticks and mosquitoes. West Nile has gotten pretty prevalent in that area. I spoke with several folks whose dogs had had West Nile. For those of you that travel or if you spend much time in mosquito infested areas be sure to protect your dog with some type of repellant. Bio-Spot, Frontline are two that come to mind. These products do a great job of protecting your dog. And now that the rains have stopped and we are starting to see summer temperature this would be a good time to treat you pet. Most of these products work for 3 or 4 months so an application now will get you through the entire summer. 5-30-2004 puppy time is about over for Hershey. This week we will begin a little more formal work. Nothing too drastic but at almost 16 weeks she can start to work on the basic commands in a more serious manner. The first thing that I like to teach is the "SIT" command. I think is the most important command that we teach. Simply stated, the sit command gives you a good measure of control over your dog. Being able to sit your dog and have him or her stay in that position is very important. Not only from the practical point of just being able to make your dog stay in one place but it is important from a safety factor. If you can sit you dog consistently in situations of high distraction then you can stop him or her in situations that might endanger the dog, like running out in a busy street. When I teach sit that is all I teach. I do not also teach stay. If I tell my dogs to sit then that is just what I expect them to do. I see no reason to have to add Stay to that. I have already told the dog to sit. Why should I have to tell it to stay. IS "sit-Stay" any different than just "sit". Now I don't expect a 16 week old puppy to sit for long periods of time so I don't set the puppy up to fail. Mostly for the early stages the dog is hearing the sit command prior to being released for a thrown object. In this situation the "Sit" command has a very defined beginning and end. Any other time that I use it outside of training I be sure that I also release the dog after it has been put in a sit position. In other words I try never to sit the dog in a situation that will allow him to "break" (move without being released). This way they learn that when they are told to sit they should just sit until being told to do something else. For a release I use OK. 6-4-2004 We introduced the chain collar this week. This will be the collar that we will use for most of our obedience work. Not really that big of a deal but some dogs take a day of two to get used to the new sounds and feel of a chain collar. This is not a heavy collar, nor is it a prong collar, which we may or not go to later depending on how formal obedience goes. MY guess is that with this girl we will not need to. But I will let her tell me that. 6-7-2004 Leaving for Tennessee early in the morning. We have some miles to put behind us over the next few days. You know traveling with dogs is really quite easy. I will have 4 with me on this trip. One thing I try to do is not change their schedule too much from their home schedule. I feed pretty much at the same time as I would at home. I also try to get them up in the morning and bed them down at the same time. Beyond that I just try to make sure that they get plenty of stops. I prefer more frequent shorter stops as I think it keeps the dogs in a better frame of mind. If you dog goes off his food for a day or so while on the road don't fret. That is not unusual. Some of my dogs get so excited about going on the road that they quite eating for days at a time. I don't really worry about it unless it goes into multiple days. If your dog does this try giving dog biscuits to your pup most dogs will eat them even when going off their food. Most important is water. It is easy to get behind on water when you are on the road. Offer your dog(s) water several times throughout the day. And be sure to give them enough time to drink. It is easy for the dog to become distracted and not drink and it is also easy to rush the dog because you are trying to get on the road. Also those of you that have their dogs in crates in the back of the truck while traveling ( this is what I do ) you need to watch their eyes. Road dust can take a toll on the eyes so it is good to be sire to really look at your dog at least once a day. Lastly, be sure to ad a little time to your expected travel time. I figure the dogs add an extra hour a day due to more frequent stops so be sure to work that into you expected travel time. 6-14-2004 We this has been a big week for Hershey. We lost a lot of teeth this week. Funny how fast this happens in dogs. When they start to loose them they really go fast. Most dogs loose their puppy teeth at around 4 to 5 months. And the process of going from puppy to adult teeth takes about 3 to 4 weeks. This is the time that your puppy will want to chew. So be sure that you provide things to chew on during this time and watch the furniture during this time as well because given the chance it will get chewed on. It always amazes me how few teeth that I find that my dogs have lost. We spent the weekend at Bristol Motor speedway with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation providing dog demonstrations as well as seminars. So Hershey got to be a demo dog for the weekend. Two of the seminars that we did were gun conditioning and collar conditioning. We used Hershey for both of these. Hershey made a good choice for the gun conditioning since she is already gun conditioned but yet still very young. She did a great job there. However, it was the collar conditioning that I was most happy about, as that was something that we needed to get done anyway. So that gave us a chance to have a dog for the seminar that really had not had the collar on so that the folks watching could see the real process. She only was worked on the color for 2 days so we still have more work to do there but we made a great start over the weekend. As soon as I am back from this trip, which should be Thursday the 24th, we will get back to it and I will at that time explain how and what I am doing. The Montana Outdoor Radio Show is sponsored by: