New puppy update

[BRoth82]

About 5 weeks ago now my family picked up a new puppy his name is Hank and he's a Lab/English Cocker spaniel cross, he's going to be mainly a family dog, I'll also be training him to hunt pheasants as well. Right now I'm following this book (Tom Dokken's Retriever Training: The Complete Guide to Developing Your Hunting) and Hank is picking up on the commands very nicely he will Sit, Come, Down, Place and Kennel with a treat right now. Very soon I'll be transitioning him away from treat training and start working on Heel and Stay. House training is going good, he goes through the night and is starting to go to the door if he needs to go out. He still has a #1 accident about once a week, but that is mainly our fault if we don't pick up on his cues right away.

Being he's a Lab cross we were not sure how big he will get, the male is the English cocker and looked to be around 35 pounds. The female was around 55-60 pounds, at the rate he's growing he's looking like he'll be the size of a medium lab. I've been weighing him each week just to see how much he's growing and at 13 weeks he now pushing 21#'s

Here's a couple of pictures of Hank, I'll try to keep this post updated on how the training is going.

 

[Curvebow]

Cute dog! Good luck with him!!

 

[Nick87]

Good looking pup!

 

[BrentD]

Cool looking dog. He might be the bee's knees for pheasants in the cattails up your way. I hope so.

 

[OhHeyThereBen]

I spent many an hour down in Southwest MN during my college days chasing pheasants. I sure wish I would've had that little ankle biter along with me! I wish you the best of luck.

 

[BRoth82]

OhHeyThereBen, what part of SWMN Marshall? I live just South of Willmar

 

[OhHeyThereBen]

I went to college at SMSU. Just a bit farther Southwest of you! We typically headed a bit West to hunt in Lincoln County on public land out there. Birds were numerous, but roosters were few and far between. I'd imagine a good dog would be much more effective at kicking up wiley roosters than a bunch of numbskull football players marching through cattails

 

[Northwoods Labs]

Nice looking pup. Sounds like you are off to a great start. Keep sharing the pictures and progress

 

[1_pointer]

Great looking pup! You picked a great name; I too have a Hank. Good luck on the training and let us know how he progresses.

 

[BRoth82]

Thanks everyone for the compliments. Hank is a little over 14 weeks old now and weighs 26.8 pounds. He still thinks he's a lap dog but is quickly out growing my family's laps.
I started this week on transitioning him to a choke collar and it's going great he's picking up on the concept of "pressure on/pressure off". He has Sit, Come, Down, Place and Kennel down, I've been starting to work on Stay and after a day of working with him I can take 3 steps back and he will stay until I come back to him with a treat.

 

[ewludwig]

A guy at the Game Fair in Anoka told me to take the dog’s weight at 16 weeks and double it to get the weight of your dog fully grown. That has proven accurate for my almost 3y/o lab.

 

[OhHeyThereBen]

Glad he's doing so well! Looks like he's about the right age to get after your hunting boots.

 

[BRoth82]

Update on Hank, he's now a little over 16 weeks and right at 31.5 pounds. He's doing very good with leash training and learning how to heel. It's been rough getting him outside to work on training with our weather here in MN, we've had a bunch of snow and really cold (on night with out the wind chill it was something like -43 and with the windchill it was -62).

 

[BRoth82]

Hank is now 18 weeks old, and a fit 35.8 pounds. He listens really good to me and my wife, but has a problem with nipping at the kids (6 year old and an 8 year old) the biggest contribution to him nipping at them is they jerk their hand away or turn and try to get away from him. Instead of showing him who the dominant one is, so if any of you have younger kids and have trained a puppy in the house how do you train the puppy to act properly around the kids. Right now I limit the time the kids are with him and only when my wife or myself are there also. My thought is that the kids need to show him that they are the boss, and i can't do that for them. My daughter is better at that than my son. Any helpful tips you guys can give would be great.

 

[JLS]

We’ve always taught the kids to grab the top of the muzzle and pinch the lip into the upper teeth while giving a strong verbal correction. If it’s really bad, keep the puppy on a leash and correct it.

Not sure what kind of a collar you’re using. We use a Wonder Lead and really like it.

Don’t be afraid to help the kids out in the corrections. You can also give them a rolled up newspaper and give him a rap on the nose with it when he nips.

 

[wytex]

Nice looking pup!
Get those kids to be firm with him. Tell them "no" is the word and when to use it.
How's he fetching?

 

[BRoth82]

Thanks guys, I have the kids be more firm with him. It's a little bit of a challenge, since he's now half their size. I have only been fetching with him in the house since we have 2' on snow on the ground here. I have been using a racket ball and he loves fetching it, I'm going to use the racket ball outside as a fun bumper when training him.

 

[1claire]

It seems like you found a new subject for your photography hobby, and he is not shy at all.
He looks so cute and obedient.