Beginning Training

Once I had gotten Hessian it was time to began the task of training. Not only was I going to have to work on the basic obedience of an every day house dog, I was going to teach this dog how to hunt and become what i want as a hunting dog. Little did i know that my job was going to be a little harder than most. You see this was my First experience ever training a dog let alone a hunting dog, not just that but most people who have hunting dogs do not have a house dog. The hunting dog is mostly kenneled up alot, not alot of freedom yet allowed to be a puppy. The reason for this is training. If the dog is kenneled it makes training a bit more productive cause the only time the dog gets to play is when it is training,therefore making training fun to the dog. My significant other Carrie wasn't gonna have that though! She loves her dogs and there was no way it was gonna get locked up all the time, she want a house companion too. I agree i wanted him around all the time and everywhere, even on the bed,which only adds to my dilemma.

 What happens is a dog that is allowed on furniture and on the bed,couch etc. along with having free roam of house and yard comes to want to challenge your every move. It wants to get up when you don't want it to or when company is over or what ever. It has been challenging but mostly we've worked it all out. We let him be unless company is over than we control where he hangs out. No furniture only floor for you dog! Also with having free roam of the house you open yourself up for lots of trouble! Not just so much the potty training thing but just the fact that everything looks like a toy to a young pup. Socks, shoes,underwear. towels and rags etc. We had our share of him eating things and still have to stop him from taking off with something. He's still just a pup and i imagine we will work out of that stage eventually.

  Potty training was not so bad, that was probably the easiest thing to train. We had a pet door in the back door and just watched him close and when he started sniffing around nose to the ground we would swoop him up, rush him outside, let him do his thing and praise him for it. I think we really only had about 3 accidents in he house and not one since. The pet door helped alot as soon as he figured out he could go out on his own that was that.

  I had him socialize with other pups at a young age about 12 weeks.And at 15 weeks we were enrolled in puppy preschool which helped us both alot. He was able to socialize with other pups and i was able to learn the basics of obedience training which we later moved up to a Basic Obedience class and now want to start an Advanced or Competition Obedience class. As for the beginning trainer i would definitely recommend classes.

   Once i started training for the hunting that got interesting. I screwed up alot and still do i'm sure. I tried to get him to point by using planted Bob White Quail, which was a bad move. Pups that have not learned what pointing is will just run in when they smell the bird. That is what happened to me alot. He ran in and busted so many birds caught every one of em,thats enough to take the point right out of a dog, which is exactly what happened and i have to resort to bird launchers until i can teach him steadiness, but that will wait till after our first test.

  On the tracking section of things I screwed up there too by letting him chase too many rabbits and shooting too many rabbits for him. This produced a dog that wanted to only run around after rabbits. I had to fix this too by checkcording him alot to stop him from chasing and having to use his nose to find rabbits.

 I still have thing to work on but this why i am still learning, reading, watching, taking notes and writing in a journal and starting this blog so eventually i can write a guide for the first timer like me.