GUN DOG TRAINING

I´ve been a very fortunate puppy! My mom read up everything about “working Labradors” and came to the conclusion that I will need a lot to do and to take care of, or else I would chew the furniture. I will never tell her, but  am actually a very relaxed dog and sometimes I can live with nothing is going on, but .. shush!
So, what is the main purpose of a dog like me? Becoming a gun dog! As mom is shootig all the time anyway, me not being gun shy was a precondition. My excellent breeder Sonja took care of that. I am a proud member of the Thornmountains gang! I also was already used to the whistle signal “come”. When I heard that it always meant something extremely exciting was waiting for me! In order for me to become a real gun dog, mom found fantastic teachers for me! She did not see at first that they are like 3 hours away from our home, but who cares, I needed to get used to stay for hours in the car anyway. And it was worth it! I still do not understand why they call it “training” while I just went there for eating! For every “sit” and “come” and “wait” and “stay”  and “heel” and “side” I got cheese! I would do everything in the world for cheese, but they just wanted me to do this easy stuff. As if I would ever miss out a chance for cheese! Well, ok, admittedly “stay” is no fun at all. First I thought, mom is leaving me and never ever will come back again. I don´t care if this was just one meter! Being a good girl, doing like she told me and watching her leaving me was heartbreaking! I was trembling all over my body! But I stayed. And got cheese. So, kind of worth it, isn´t it? But the actual fun started when they brought  dummies into play!
Mom is  throwing them or placing them far away and I have to bring them back. I love that! And mom is so excited when I do it, that I try not to think about why on earth she then always looses them. The only thing I still don´t really get, is why I am not allowed to bring all dummies at the same time when there are more then one. It would be so much more efficient to collect them and then come back, but no, I have to bring one after the other. Humans! But ok, they do weird things.
Last time was incredible! Mom was throwing dummies as usual and I brought them back, but suddenly she threw a real pheasant! I was not absolutely sure what to do, but mom did like she always does, so I brought it back. And got cheese! Hm … I have to rethink that … a pheasant for a piece of cheese … if only I would not be such a well behaved dog!
Let me tell you a little about the place where I get my training. It is in Styria, the nicest area of Austria (mom´s words). Since I am a big girl we do 2 hours of training (when I was a little puppy we did only one hour). Either at the dog school place or in the middle of the fields for my gundog training. When I come there, Elli and Marc – my teachers –  are already waiting for me. They are always so happy to see me, they are my best human friends. It´s only them, mom and me for training, so there is time to learn. I learn much faster than mom does. Well, no one gives cheese to her, maybe that is the reason. But Elli and Marc are very nice trainers, Elli clicks and Marc praises mom when she had done something good. I heard that many dog trainers do not treat the humans very nice, but do they not know that humans need positive reinforcement too?
So, for dogs and humans I highly recommend this dog school for all purposes – gundog training, obedience, just for fun and sofa … you will love it!