New Yellow Lab Puppy!

[npaden]

First I want to thank everyone for all the information given in my thread $1,200 for a lab puppy. We didn't end up paying that much (we paid $700) but my wife still thinks I'm crazy spending that much on a puppy. This will be our first ever registered dog. Hopefully her breeding will help overcome my shortfall as an instructor.

I messed up on how old she was, she is 12 weeks old, but seems pretty well adjusted so hopefully we will still be able to end up with a good dog out of her.

My son decided to keep the name that the breeder had given her, Layla.

Here's some pictures from last night taken with my phone.

I was surprised that she just jumped right in the pond. on that 6th picture. She had waded in with our rottweiler and even swam a bit but then after going over and climbing up on the rocks she just leaped right back in and swam over to my son. I really liked that last picture how she blended into the grass so well and how she was looking at my son to see what he was doing. Out of the 4 puppies they had left she was the calmest and most attentive.

All my books I ordered are still on the way so I'm having to wing it for now on training her. For the most part we are just spending a lot of time with her and trying to teach her not to bark at the door and jump on it and not to jump on us. She already fetches pretty well and we have plenty of chew toys for her and a dog crate that we have on the back porch for her to sleep on. Our rottweiler isn't thrilled about her, but I think she will attach to her pretty quick as she has been alone for almost 4 months now and really seems to miss our other dog that died of old age. The crate is intended for her to be attached to as a home so that when I take her hunting I can leave her in the crate in my travel trailer. She isn't going to be an inside dog.

We live out in the country and don't have a fenced in yard. We have a wireless pet fence that we used with one of our other dogs and it worked well, but hopefully we won't have to use it for her. It has 2 of the transmitters and can cover about an acre, but they have to always wear a collar and it is hard for them to understand when you want them to cross the line to go out walking with you.

Oh well, I'm very excited about trying to actually end up with a real bird dog as well as a family pet. I've got big ideas of trying to train her to shed hunt as well, but #1 priority is a well behaved dog.

My books are supposed to get here Thursday, if anyone has any essential tips I need to know before then I'm all ears.

Thanks again for all the information and help finding her.

Nathan

 

[noharleyyet]

Eric Clapton would be proud. Nice looking pup paden.

She isn't going to be an inside dog.

Ha!

 

[wyoming556]

Good looking pup.

 

[noharleyyet]

Nathan, the look on your son's face has inside dog written all over it.
...and that's sure not a bad thing.

 

[jabber]

Congrats... Nice looking pup.

 

[smarandr]

My books are supposed to get here Thursday, if anyone has any essential tips I need to know before then I'm all ears.

Patience, patience and more patience. And then when/if you run out of it like I did, send her to a pro--best $800 I ever spent.

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

Feed her in the crate, reinforces the "den" concept you are looking for.

If she is going to hunt start shooting a dime store cap gun occasionally while she eats, this will help her associate gunfire with good things. Start farther away and work closer over a few weeks. at some point work up to a .22 and then a shotgun. Most dogs don't have an issue with gun-shyness, but not worth the risk.

If you haven't ordered it yet, check out "Finished Dog" it is a really good book.

 

[idnative1948]

Neat pond and pup!!

 

[BiggWimm]

Love the fact that she isn't water shy. That is always a good thing for a bird dog. Very nice!

 

[Aceman]

Great looking pup Nathan - I have listed some training materials for sale in the Classified section. Very impressed at how quick the pup took to water -

 

[300 short mag]

I feel that to have a really good family dog you should let the dog live in the house I have had also belive that they will be easier to train that way We have had 4 dif3erent labs and all lived in the house and they were all good hunters . Our Lab we have now is 2 years old and is a phesant hunting machine My wife just loves him and behaves very well inthe house. Just my 2 cents worth. John

 

[dan.kirkpatrick]

labs are great dogs,,,I have 6 of them myself,p m me if yuo have any questions.

 

[bjtc_brian]

Someday, we will be getting another one. Hope it is as cute as yours! I have a yellow lab(very light color) that we(family) absolutely love. I think Labs are the best family dog!!!

 

[mtmiller]

Nathan, awesome.

That is a great looking pup. Please keep the pics coming as he (woops, she) comes along. He (she) will be ready to tear it up this fall.

Looks like your son and newest kid are hitting it off. Awesome that she is comfy in the water already.

 

[Brittany Chukarman]

Looks like you picked a good one.She has a really alert look to her for a puppy. We have an older male, what a great breed. Beware the chewing stage!

 

[jones39]

Great looking pup. I have a year and a half old yellow lab that goes to work with me everyday. Labs are a great breed!

 

[putm2sleep]

Real good looking pup. Interesting you have a rot too.

Work her every day on retrieving! 4-5 times a day. At 12 weeks, get her doing doubles, and get yourself a pile of dummies. Practice running lines, and work on casting. Nothing like having a dog on remote control! With well-behaved being your goal too....set high expectations and do not deviate. Work obedience all the time! Have fun. Looks like you have a super property to work her on....do not have to go far.

 

[npaden]

Thanks for all the replies everyone.

I'm excited to actually have a hunting dog! My rottweiler has actually done okay retrieving doves for me, she's found some that there was no way I would have ever found them, but she's getting older and has an ACL problem. Before that we had a Britnay Spanile/Rott mix that was a pretty good bird dog too, but he was hit by a car and only had 3 legs most of his life. Before that our first dog was a 1/2 lab 1/2 chow that was deathly afraid of water and loud noises so she didn't work too well on hunting.

All our dogs have been outside dogs and we're probably going to keep it that way. We've always done okay on obedience training but not awesome, we are going to try to step it up with this one though. We are working on retrieving (the breeder already had her retrieving ducks that were about as big as her) but I don't know what a double, running lines, casting or a pile of dummies is.

I would have been all over that package of books aceman has in the classifieds, but I had already ordered a pile of them and got the first set in today (the Smartwork ones by Evan Graham).

Right now the plan is to have at least 2 training sessions a day with a lot of interaction and play time worked in addition to that (retrieving is play time right now the way we are doing it).

My Wolters books are supposed to come in tomorrow so I'm hoping to get going on his training plan right away.

We live on 52 acres and right now we don't have our yard fenced or anything. The little pond is about 100 yards from the house on some CRP ground. We have a covey or two of quail on the property and hopefully Layla will follow the example of the rottweiler and stick around the house without the need to get out our wireless fence to keep her around.

We had a short ownership of a 2 year old english pointer and it chased off every bird on the entire 52 acres before we put the wireless fence up. I learned a lot during the 6 months we had that english pointer and hopefully I will be able to train Layla as a puppy to not have 10% of the bad habits that pointer had.

 

[dexnrex]

Looks like you got a good one. You and I are in the same boat with pups nearly the same age. I had a Chocolate Lab until last November. She was my first dog and first attempt at training and she turned out great. I'm sure your Lab will as well. I can tell you after several weeks with a hard headed, energetic pointer that training my lab was much easier than this is going to be. Good luck on the training and have fun. As was mentioned above-patience, patience, patience. Let her tell you if it's time to quit a training session and just have fun.

Your post and pics prompted me to post the photos from my pup and I on our first shed hunt.

 

[jlmatthew]

No other breed of dogs are as cute as Lab pups