Well, Now What?

[fabsroman]

Roy,

Now you are in for a good time and that lab is going to make you a bird hunting fool when you see how excited it gets when it is hunting time.

Places to start are books. I have read a couple, but there are a lot of them out there. I would give you some names, but all the books are on the 4th floor and I don't feel like treking up 3 flights of stairs right now.

Off the top of my head, there is

1. 10 Minute Retriever
2. Top Dog
3. Smart Fetch
4. Smartwork
5. Smartwork II
6. Hey Pup, Fetch It Up
7. Water Dog

Here is a website that has a lot of training books and dog supplies in it:

www.lcsupply.com

You will need to search for the training books, but it will not be too hard to find them.

Top Dog was the first book I read and I liked it a lot. It helped me train two golden retrievers pretty well. However, when I tried to use those methods on my lab, Nitro, not everything worked. So, I went to a couple other books to see if I could figure out different methods to try. I know I read part of 10 Minute Retriever and Smart Fetch, but I haven't read any of the other books, even though I own them. Might get to them this summer.

The place you need to start is with the basic commands. Sit, down, up, and come, with sit being the most important I think. The dog should remain in the sit command until you use a release command. I picked "okay" as my release command. More commands will come after the basics are learned (e.g., heal, fetch, over, back) and you will eventually want to use a whistle for the sit and come commands.

Post some pics when you get a chance. By the way, 60 lbs is a small lab. Nitro is 100 and he pulls like a horse. He is a handful for my wife and both she and he know it.