I want to give my dog a shot at seeing if she can learn to be a duck dog. She is a Lab Mix, likely with American Pitbull Terrier. She has a strong drive to work and retrieve. High drive to please, and she has very good conditioning. She has basic obedience down (Sit, Down, heal, Stay). She is right under 8 months old. I have no clue how she would do as a bird retriever. I have never training or had a Duck Dog before, but I would at least like to give her a shot and see how well she does. I wont lose anything by putting in time training her, if it doesn't work out, I will just have a more obedient pet.

My question is, where do I start? Can anyone recommend a training book, video, website that kind of walks you through? I don't want to get too far ahead of where she needs to be and would like to talk my time with her and give her a shot next year for duck season.

I loved working with my Catahoula mix, who is now a beast at disc/Frisbee and is a phenomenally obedient dog. I hope I can whip this one into being a bird dog.

Thanks guys.

Where are you located? I read water dog first, then bought Chris Akins duck dog basics ( which I highly recommend) and then followed up with Freddy kings series of videos. Once you get into it you realize that its a lot simpler than it seems. I was once told you can make any dog a duck dog. No desire to retieve... Force fetch the hell out of her, refusal to go, force to pile. Now whether it's easy or not has a lot to do with genetics and the breed. But my recommendation is buy the video series off ebay and start ASAP. At that age you're already behind.

I live in Thibodaux. She works well. I can have her sit/stay and she will hold. I can throw a decoy out and she will stay and I can send to the decoy and she will return it to me. I know I'm late to the game with her, but I think I can still get here where she would be a decent hunting dog.

Thanks for the info. I will look into the videos and books.

very very solid advice. Although they do have a waterfowl shepard on youtube thats pretty cool to watch and actually pretty good. Best of luck

If you're dog is bringing decoys back, you're going to have a long season.




A few things, 1, get a different dog. Can it be done, possibly, is it worth it, I don't think the juice is worth the likely squeeze. A well bred dog will do a lot better a lot faster. It's that simple.

As for training, Chris Aiken is good, but his program has some holes. Fowl dawgs is a more thorough resource for the "meat dog" guy. Smart works, and total retriever training (mike lardy) are the two most complete series out there.[/quote]

I'm talking about a training bumper/dog training decoy. Not a plastic decoy. I don't want another dog. I have 2 already, thanks for the info on the videos.

Larry or Graham.

Find a local retriever club and go to training days. It will help a lot.

I figured that. Lol. Being new on this site, I don't know who the comedians are yet.

sorry I had my words mixed up. She is currently laid up due to being spade on Monday, but once we get back to it, I will try to keep a running status every so often on her progress. Hopefully I will have her in hunting form by next duck season.

Try duckhuntingchat.com

It has a very thorough dog forum full of knowledge