Basic (3 to 4 months)
Our basic program is designed to establish sound
general obedience, a good work attitude, and give confidence to the young
retriever. Verbal and whistle obedience commands will be taught and then
reinforced with proper collar conditioning. This allows us to establish a
quick command response even at a distance. Delivery to hand will be
established by teaching a proper hold and mouth habits on training bumpers
and birds. Force Fetch will follow to instill sound pickup and delivery.
Your
dog will be exposed to decoys, boats, guns, and countless land and water
retrieving situations. Upon completion of this program your dog will
be relatively steady and able to compete at the AKC Junior Hunt Test level.
Transition (3 to 4 months)
After completion of the basic program, your dog is
ready to move on to our transition training. This will build upon the
foundation work established in the basic program. We will focus on
multiple marks, diversions, and blind retrieves during this training.
Handling skills will be taught and reinforced with proper go-stop-come
standards. Your dog will become steady and required to honor another dog’s
work. This training should allow your dog to handle AKC Senior level Hunt
Tests.
Advanced
Upon completion of the transition training an
exceptionally talented retriever can move on to our advanced training. This
training will refine the skills needed and give your dog exposure to the
technical and complex situations that are encountered at the AKC Master Hunt
Test level. Countless hours of training are required to perform at the Master level. At this level, each dog's rate of progress will be different
depending on their strong and weak points. Effort will be focused upon
addressing any areas of weakness while maintaining the established strong
traits for your particular dog.
Note
Each dog is constantly evaluated during all stages of
training. We may reach a training level at which we determine a certain dog is not going
to succeed. Should this happen, the owner will be
immediately contacted and the details of the evaluation will be discussed;
at this time, a dog may or may not continue training with us. We are proud
of the training achievements we have made with past clients, but foremost it
is our intent to be upfront and send home a dog that is trained to the level
that you paid for.
This is a panoramic view of one of our training grounds. It was
created by "stitching" 9 individual photos together. Although the
waterway in the foreground looks like it has a sharp bend in the middle,
it is actually a straight channel; the "bend" is an illusion caused by
the stitching process.
Click on any photo for a larger view. The
full-size panorama is a large photo and will take a while to load on
slower internet connections.
