Basic Training for a Retriever

Your duck hunting experience will be greatly enhanced when you partner with a well-trained retriever.  A good working retriever who knows what he or she is about and obeys your commands will add so much to your hunting enjoyment.  The following are a few basic tips to accomplish this.

The easiest way to prepare a sporting dog to ignore a floating decoy is to condition the sporting dog before the hunt to leave duck decoys alone. For starters, take the sporting dog out after you have set out a small spread of duck decoys – let’s say five to seven – on the lawn and walk the sporting dog through them. Let the sporting dog know you don’t want him to pick up these duck decoys. They are taboo.

After we make the sporting dog comfortable around the duck decoys to the point that he’s not picking them up, we can start throwing the training dummy into the duck decoys and have him retrieve the dummy out of the duck decoys until he’s very comfortable with the concept. You must also be careful that you don’t make the sporting dog afraid of the duck decoys (for example, by applying collar stimulation when you shouldn’t). You want to make sure the sporting dog is comfortable moving around amid the duck decoys and not trying to retrieve them for you.

If you know you’re hunting out of a particular boat, be sure to load the sporting dog in and out of the boat a few times so he’s comfortable with it. If you can work it out, take the boat to a lake or pond and let the sporting dog make some short retrieves so he knows where he’s supposed to sit and his entry and exit points. After you have done some of that initial work, it’s time to take the sporting dog out to a pond. Spread out six or seven floating duck decoys and make sure the sporting dog will retrieve through the duck decoys.

Always be sure when you put your duck decoys out that you keep the anchor strings as short as possible or the sporting dog will get tangled in your decoy spread and start dragging them around. A young sporting dog can become afraid of a floating decoy if he has become tangled in the anchor string and the duck decoys bumps him a few times. We don’t want that.

Many sporting dogs don’t hear a duck or goose call until the first time they hunt. When they do, they can’t identify the noise and it causes excitement and confusion. You need to condition your sporting dogs to the call. Use the call while you’re training them.

Many sporting dogs have never been shot over prior to their first hunt. You have to train the sporting dog to react positively to a shotgun going off over his head. In training, start out shooting away from the sporting dog and slowly adjust until you are shooting right over the sporting dog. You want the sporting dog to remain perfectly still as the gun is going off.

What I do when training is blow the call for a while, shoot the gun and throw the dummy bird to retrieve. Then the sporting dog will get used to the scenario. He’ll become more efficient when he’s not surprised and will perform properly that first time in the duck blind or the boat.

If we’re going to change something – let’s say we’ve been hunting out of a blind and now we’re going to use a boat – then we should expose the sporting dog to the boat and make him comfortable in it before we hunt.

I never get too critical of my sporting dogs in a new situation until they know what is expected of them. Once they understand the rules, then often just a low level of stimulation from the collar is all that’s necessary to keep them on track.

Bad habits are multiplied every time we let a sporting dog do something more than once. If you let your sporting dog leave the boat or leave the blind before you have commanded it, then you are allowing a situation to develop that will be harder to break later. That’s why you want to have all the kinks worked out before you actually enter a hunting situation.

Although your sporting dog may be well trained, you may discover that all the excitement of the hunting action can cause your sporting dog to have some temporary memory loss. Even if that happens and the sporting dog gets a bit out of line, he will understand why he’s being corrected and what needs to be done so he won’t have to feel the stimulation of the training collar. A few simple reminders with some low-level stimulation will be all it takes to get the sporting dog on the right path and get him thinking properly again.

One big problem we all see in blinds is that the sporting dog likes to break for the bird before we give the command. The best way to train a sporting dog from breaking too quickly when a bird drops is with a breaking box. I have also used an eye bolt in the boat or blind to put the sporting dog on a check cord while hunting.

We put the sporting dog in the box and attach him to a check cord attached to the box. Where the cord is attached to the sporting dog we use a slipknot, and when we are ready to release the sporting dog we just reach over and pull the knot loose on the cord and give him the command. Without the box the sporting dog is spinning around and moving. This box is just big enough for the sporting dog to get into and he can’t buck around in it.

Many hunters think their sporting dog is ready for hunting because he’s doing a good job of retrieving. But unless your dog is brilliant – some are, but not all – you need to train with hunting situations.

A well-mannered hunting dog is a blessing.  Some hunters are lucky enough to hhave several such dogs over their lifetime.  Many only have that one truly special buddy who adds so much to the enjoyment of the hunt.  Give them lots of attention and love and you’ll be in for years of great hunting adventures.