Wolf and Dog Pup study info

Nice! My pup isnt ready for ducks this year but i was thinking of letting her flush some grouse and woodcock. Should be fun!
 
jonnyghost said:
Nice! My pup isnt ready for ducks this year but i was thinking of letting her flush some grouse and woodcock. Should be fun!
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I have pointers and they both have been pointing since they were young pups. My male just finished that really tough teenage time that hits at around 9 months and seems to last forever as a form of torture. He wouldn't listen for any reason whatsoever. He regained his mind, however!
 
Yea, the great thing about having a fetching machine is when she starts getting full of herself I just toss the ball until she starts dragging. Hardy noticed the teenage years :D

My wife has an English setter but she's just a frog and squirrel dog :laugh2:
 
Eater -
yes! regarding dog parks. I tell clients and pet shop customers <I also work at a local holistic pet supply shop> that dog parks aren't the best idea. Too many dogs and people who shouldn't be there - people not watching the dogs, people not even knowledgeable about their dogs....and dogs whose only opportunity for exercise is the dog park <too many people use the dog park as the one and only way for an otherwise under-exercised and frustrated dog to "do something", which usually leads to disaster> , or dogs who really aren't enjoying themselves, don't like crowds of dogs, have low frustration tolerance or socialization skills etc. Any combination of the above, as well as people bringing 6 week old puppies in, or toys over which dogs then skirmish. And on and on. Dogs parks are a lovely fantasy concept, really actually working out well from a canine behavioral perspective only a small amount of the time.

as far as your male and "that teenage time" - indeed...canine adolescence can be quite a challenge. People sometimes say to me - oh, he's such and easy puppy, he follows me everywhere and knows how to sit and comes to me - of a 3 month old.....well, but wait! <grin> I remind <or tell, depending on knowledge level of person> them how adolescence is coming - the time when puppies lose their brains and forget anything they knew!


with my youngest Rottie, she plays ball like a typical Lab and it's not something I taught- one day she just decided - I'm gonna play ball and she ran out and got the ball and brought it back to hand and we just went from there. Rotties as a breed tend not to be ball-oriented or mouthy and with my other Rotties I backchained the retrieve.
Well, with this little one <she's smaller than average - her brother dwarfs her> adolescence was -one: not unlike the earlier part of her puppyhood in terms of craziness; and two: with the ball, like you wrote, johnny, just toss the thing til she's done....

and yeah, regarding the fight I described - I was disappointed for both of us but not surprised. He was already a sensitive dog with some issues and with that conflict he became more sensitized to dog-dog encounters.

we actually stopped walking in the neighborhood because it was simply too much of a risk for both my dogs, to put them into situations where that would happen - we had a lot of stray/loose dogs and the typical "oh but he's friendly" scenario as I scrambled with leash and approaching dog...I started carrying extra food to throw and an umbrella and dog deterrent spray and everything but decided after a certain situation that even those things would not be enough of a deterrent to prevent a particularly determined and powerful dog <and in combination with my strong dogs> with ambivalent or un-friendly intent so we quit that altogether-
 
In terms of eating stuff, my first Lab was notorious and did not impress my husband...he ate the handle off the garden hose wheel thing that you turn so the hose can come undone; chewed the spigot off the outdoor water faucet that is attached to the house; chewed the wheelbarrow tires in the yard; the picnic table legs; two grill covers among other things. And he liked Bitter Apple. Some dogs do. These things were really all handler error though- he was with us at a time when I knew less. Today I'd do things differently.
 
dogmom said:
In terms of eating stuff, my first Lab was notorious and did not impress my husband...he ate the handle off the garden hose wheel thing that you turn so the hose can come undone; chewed the spigot off the outdoor water faucet that is attached to the house; chewed the wheelbarrow tires in the yard; the picnic table legs; two grill covers among other things. And he liked Bitter Apple. Some dogs do. These things were really all handler error though- he was with us at a time when I knew less. Today I'd do things differently.
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Yea, I think we all look back and realize all the things we did wrong with previous dogs. If we didn't I guess that would mean we didn't learn anything!
 
dogmom said:
...with my youngest Rottie, she plays ball like a typical Lab and it's not something I taught- one day she just decided - I'm gonna play ball and she ran out and got the ball and brought it back to hand and we just went from there. ...
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Most labs like to fetch by instinct and many other too but I trained her so that I insured I would get a retriever. Having a duck dog that doesn't retrieve is not much fun! :lol: Now it's what she lives for. :D
 
"....Having a duck dog that doesn't retrieve is not much fun! ...."


"Yea, I think we all look back and realize all the things we did wrong with previous dogs..."
all from johnnyghost


johnny- true that! each dog teaches me something new.
one of the things I learned about through living with my Lab was a small -small- bit about field trials and retriever training, including the move toward clicker gun dogs as opposed to the previous methods.

Moose my Lab was a typical ball dog and played ball til he was about 11. He was diagnosed with moderate HD and joint changes at 2 years when we did routine OFA's on both dogs <due to their breeds and cuz I planned to do dog sports>. I looked at the films and thought - eeeewwww - he never limped or anything. He ran, climbed and "hunted" <our yard> til he was about 11 also...he routinely caught squirrels, mice, rabbits, birds, possums...took a raccoon running along the top of our chain link fence one time.
Then one day when he was elderly, he attempted to catch a squirrel and got bitten - first time. He yelped and I felt so bad for him, seeing this change.


Sometimes you do get a Lab or other field breed who doesn't "turn on" to the retrieve as quickly. I've come across that anyway.
 
jonnyghost said:
Yea, the great thing about having a fetching machine is when she starts getting full of herself I just toss the ball until she starts dragging. Hardy noticed the teenage years :D

My wife has an English setter but she's just a frog and squirrel dog :laugh2:
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Marty will go after most birds but when he saw wild turkeys for the first time he was speechless! He stood up on his hind legs and looked at the turkeys with his mouth open then he sat down and you see he was thinking Holy CRAP
they're BIG birds!
 
whatdidyousay! said:
Marty will go after most birds but when he saw wild turkeys for the first time he was speechless! He stood up on his hind legs and looked at the turkeys with his mouth open then he sat down and you see he was thinking Holy CRAP
they're BIG birds!
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:laugh2: I'm hoping my pup doesn't think that when we go goose hunting!
 
dogmom said:
...-small- bit about field trials and retriever training, including the move toward clicker gun dogs as opposed to the previous methods.....
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I've never used a clicker but I use an E-collar. I know a lot of people think they are mean but they don't know how to use them. I have it on the lowest setting needed for her to feel it. I tried it on myself and it feels like a tickle. I never "shock" or "burn" her with it. That's just like hitting. I use it for pressure once she's learned a command and I give it the pressure is on and until she obeys. She get's excited when I pull out the collar because she knows it's fun time!
 
we have wild turkeys, cranes and turkey vultures in the yard, also deer, moles, woodchucks, turtles. Both my girls have gone for most of the small mammals, different birds and the deer.
The woodchucks are newest visitors and I've so far managed to take the dogs out on leash if the 'chucks are out, or just wait for a while til they leave, before my dogs go out.

I usually try and avoid them chasing the wildlife altogether as the behavior just gets reinforced whenever they do that and I like to avoid disturbing the wildlife also. Another concern with the wild rodent-like or related mammals specifically is that neither dog is quite fast enough or instinctive enough for the actual kill, which was the opposite of my Lab,<til the point I mentioned in my story> - he would take care of things quite efficiently.
 
That was another benefit of training for the retrieve. I have free range chickens and we play in the same area all the time. With the training I've taught her only to go after what I tell her to. She also sits until I tell her to fetch.
 
jonnyghost said:
That was another benefit of training for the retrieve. I have free range chickens and we play in the same area all the time. With the training I've taught her only to go after what I tell her to. She also sits until I tell her to fetch.
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Did you know that Standard Poodle are retriever too and once used all the time to retrieve ducks. People think the hair cut poodles get where to be 'pretty' and that is not true . Poodle fur was shaved off their body and only left on the hips and shoulders to keep their joints warm when they jumped into the cold water to get a bird . The fur was shaved off their bodies so they would not get stuck in the bushes or berries patch. My last dog was a Standard Poodle and I threw a ball that landed in a berries path and my poor dog could not get out, the harder he pulled the tighter he got stuck. I had to go into the berries path and pull all the vine off my dog then carry him out.
 
yeah, true...I remember reading about that before. Here's some more info. about the Poodle's history as a water dog: Poodle Page

We see a lot of "Doodles' around here. They were originally a cross-breed from Australia meant to be working field dogs, not meant as the "family pets" typically seen today. Initially serious breeders urged people not to get them unless they were going to be working in the field. But they became popular as another "hypo-allergenic" possibility <not really an accurate concept> and people already enamored of Labs saw that in them and wanted one.
They are mixed breeds <nothing wrong with that> but- that people are paying a lot of money for, for dubious reasons. They come in all different sizes and shapes and coat types like any other mixed breed.
 
That's why I ended up not getting one. At first I thought they where "hypo-allergenic" like you say but then I found out that's not really true. And with the breeders around here you are getting a first generation mutt and you don't really know what that will turn out to be like in body type and temperament. I was not real impressed with the breeders because of this as they are really pushing what you could call the truth about these dogs. Nothing against the people in Austrailia who seem to be really trying to make a nice sporting breed.
 
Most of the Poodle/Lab crosses I've seen happen to be younger dogs under age 5 and quite bouncy/low impulse control, almost frenetic, with the typical mouthiness of a very young Lab. That's not saying -all - are that way, I'm sure part of this is age, and part of this where I happen to see them <dog training classes>....
 
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