New Member from Wyoming

JayDee

New member
Hello all,

Found myself here while looking for training material for my new pup. Picked up a Griff this fall and pretty excited about it. We have a variety of upland game here in Wyo and I live in the SE corner where it's an easy drive to NE and KS. Pretty blessed to live in a place where I can chase elk and birds in the same day. Now that I'm investing in this pup, I'm excited about exploring different states to extend our season.

Born and raised in Kansas and grew up with GSP's, this Griff is the first one I'll be training myself, we've both got a lot to learn!

I'm all ears on any training material, books, podcast, and so on. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Meet Banks:

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Wyoming game and fish puts on a nice upland program at springer wildlife area. Great for young dogs and a nice warmup for the season too!
 
I train my dogs myself to my taste….
1. Your dog probably knows more than you think he does
2. Have fun ( hunt often)
3. Go nuts on good results
4. Ignore stupid little stuff from pups
5. Correct big stupid stuff early and often

My only really novel advice is this….
Don’t use commands like drop it or leave it use “thank you”. The dog doesn’t understand English so it’s all the same to him. The command “ thank you” is to keep your frame of mind in the right space and remind you to be calm and appreciative of his effort.
My goals and yours may not be in alignment. I try to build partners not robotic compliance dogs. I would very likely have a different approach if I had kennel full of working dogs and business putting them to work.
I was taught this approach by Chesapeake bay retrievers which are stubborn but surprisingly soft dogs. It seems to work across all the breeds I’ve owned to varying degrees.
Finally ( sorry I can be long winded) put this thought in your head “ if you want a dog to work close, be close to your dog”

Cheers
 
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