The time is coming when we have to say good bye to this fantastic litter and let them settle into their new homes. We are extremely pleased with this litter and how they are looking. We think they are a very even litter with fantastic heads and good conformation. Its still early days but i think this is a litter with large show and working potential, so hopefully we will see this progress in the near future.
Buzz is a young English springer spaniel who is starting to find out what life should be about!
These early stages of training are very delicate, all training should be fun and within capable reach for success form the puppy.
As you can see from the video Breeze is very happy when working there is no obvious pressure on her at any point.
What i look for when i start training is a keen eye for myself and the retrieve.
At this early stage I’m starting to steady breeze with out her knowing by teasing her by pretending to throw the dummy, but its always a game.
I wouldn’t want her steady to a thrown dummy for at least 6 – 8 weeks, i want to keep her keen with drive and enthusiasm.
Always giving plenty of praise.
We have been continuing Breezes training and are very pleased with her progress, she is a very biddable bitch who is very eager to learn and succeed. She is retrieving tennis balls, puppy dummies and pheasant wings. At this early stage we don’t use the pheasant wing too much for 1 main reason, being the wing is a lot more intriguing and may put her off retrieving tennis balls and dummies which would make early training difficult. Why then do we use it? It is important for any dog to get use to picking up all kinds of objects, if you give the command for her to retrieve you want your dog to make the pick.
As she walks with us to heel off the lead we reinforce the command “heel” just as we would if she was on the lead.
Breeze is now 10 weeks old and we have been socialising her within our family environment getting her use to family life and finding her place within the pecking order. Breeze is very bright and extremely laid back, she is excellent with the children who are very hands on.
At this early stage of training it should be done within play drive with no pressure. Everything should be easy for her to achieve and made enjoyable. We are talking to her all the time in play training giving her plenty of encouragement.
The main steps at this moment in time are her retrieving and recall, her recall at present is fantastic, as soon as you call her name she comes back to you, or when you are play retrieving she also comes straight back to you, but we are never to quick to take the ball or sock off of her, as we don’t want her to get into the habit of dropping the retrieve.
We are also starting to lead train her, we put a collar on and attach a lead then let her run around the house. We will occasionally tread on the lead so she gets use to sudden pressure. We also let the children walk/pull her around to get her use to walking on the lead.
So many owners teach a dog to walk with a lead but not on a lead!
This morning at 06.00am we collected a puppy out of our yellow Labrador retriever stud dog, Moss who we had in exchange for a stud fee. We have christened her Breeze, she is a very outgoing yellow Labrador bitch.
The breeders Neil & Alison Parkin have done a fantastic job of rearing her in the first 8 weeks of puppy-hood. Our plan with Breeze is to do a step by step guide of how we introduce one of our puppies to a working life as a gundog.
This will give all an opportunity to follow our step by step guide for their own use, but also for others to give us advice if we were to come across any stumbling blocks along the way which they may have already encountered. Watch this space!
