Hi Don,
Tucker and I have been making some good progress in these last few weeks. He’s really starting to show some maturity. He seems more interested in Retrieving every week. I am keeping my sessions short and ending them while he’s still excited about retrieving. I think the book is right in saying that a lot of dogs are trained too fast and are expected to progress onto difficult tasks before they have the maturity to do so. More time should be taken at the beginning of the Dog’s life to teach obedience rather than to retrieve.
Some things that I have noticed this year in particular is his ability to swim in the marsh and the use of his nose. It’s one thing if a dog can swim out in open water and perform a retrieve but it’s a different ball game in the weeds and mud. Tucker plows right through it like no other and loves every minute of it! He uses his nose very well too, it’s fun to watch him work on live quail. You can actually see him using the wind to his advantage to find the bird, very impressive! I’m really excited to see what he can do this year come fall.
I don’t know Peter but it sounds like he has trained retrievers before. It would be interesting to get his perspective on things as I am the only one I know with a working retriever haha.
I have attached a few pictures of tucker. You will notice one picture of Tucker showing off his soft mouth by holding an egg in it!
Take care,
Andrew
