Gun Dog Forum

Hey all, been reading the forum for a while now and appreciate all of the helpful insight from folks here. I've found myself in a somewhat unique situation in that I am training a rescue dog (yellow lab) for hunting. Long story short, he was being fostered by a relative who mentioned him to me and we were able to do some digging and find out he was a 9-10 month old pup from a respected breeder not far from here. I decided to take a chance on him and that's how my journey began with Rex. He seems very intelligent and quick to learn what I'm attempting to teach him, as well as very eager to retrieve although we haven't done anything formal on that front as it's been all Obedience training so far. I am no where near an experienced trainer, but I've been reading and watching everything I can get my hands on for training materials and having a blast with it so far. My question is, our pheasant season starts here soon and I'm wondering if there is any advantage or disadvantage to exposing him to that at this point? His recall is very good and I wouldn't be concerned about that, and he's been exposed to gunfire but not a shotgun (started with a cap gun at a distance and then worked up to .22 blanks up close). Thanks in advance for any advice!

With good recall and proper gun and bird introductions a pup that age is ready to hunt. Be sure to follow a good program for your bird and gun introductions as they are critical to a hunting dogs future. Not difficult but needs to be done right and many approaches to gun introduction are not good.

Post up where you are and there maybe members near you with training birds and experience. I know I am always happy to help anyone get started.

Thanks guys. I’m in NE Iowa. I followed along with a Brookestone Kennels video on gun introduction. As far I’ve used that method with a cap gun (cheap toy, just wanted to get an intro) and .22 blanks. Any recommendations on introducing shotgun fire? The video I followed starts out at a distance shooting into your vest to muffle the sound and that seems problematic

On a different note, does anyone have recommended exercises or a program to follow for teaching the stop whistle? Seems like there is a host of information about most other commands readily available, but not a ton on working this. Rex has been sitting to the whistle for weeks, but when I give him a whistle with any amount of distance between us he tends to want to cover some of the distance and get closer to me before he sits. I've been countering this by tying his lead off to a tree, post, etc but didn't know if there was a better way of connecting the dots for him.