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Week 17 Of Training

Duration: 4 Weeks

Welcome to week seventeen of training with your puppy! This is typically the age we start to get puppies in for training here at the kennel! This is a great age for your puppy to further their training because they are more focused and ready to learn and they are ready for more challenging training! As always you will be working on training goals in each of the below sections simultaneously. Though these training goals typically coincide with training a puppy, they can also be adapted to training with any dog, no matter their age!

Obedience Goals: Over the next few weeks you will be working on transitioning to slip lead heeling with the EasyLead and then starting to overlay the e-collar to begin the process of collar conditioning the heel behavior.

Developmental Goals: You will continue to work on secondary goals with your puppy which include working on more retrieving drills and continuing nail maintenance and physical handling.

Complimentary Goals: If you have hunting goals for your puppy you will also be continuing to work on flushing birds in the field and marking shot birds for retrieves into the sequence.

Be sure to check out our Supporting Documents at the bottom of the page for helpful links to a recommended training items shopping list, sample weekly training schedule, daily training journal and training checklist. As well as a way to schedule a video training consult.

Note: Yes, there are a few videos of GSPs and not retrievers or flushers… however, the same expectations and obedience behaviors can be applied to all breeds!

Obedience Goals

Heeling With The EasyLead - Slip Lead Heeling >>> Overlay The E-collar

Overview: Once your puppy is responding mostly to the nicks on the e-collar as corrections for getting out of the heeling position with light tugs on the slip lead you will be able to do more heeling drills in more distracting environments.

Frequency: You should be able to increase the duration of your heeling sessions and continue to practice in controlled environments daily.

Key Takeaway: As you start to transition to collar conditioning for heeling you will overlay nicks on the e-collar with the slip lead tugs for corrections when your puppy isn’t in the proper heeling position.

Heeling

Heeling With The EasyLead - Slip Lead Heeling >>> Overlay The E-collar

Overview: Your puppy should have a good understanding of the heel behavior via pressure on and pressure off with the EasyLead over the muzzle.

Frequency: You should be able to increase the duration of your heeling sessions and continue to practice in controlled environments.

Developmental Goals

Nail Maintenance & Physical Handling

Nail Maintenance/Physical Handling

Overview: Continuing to develop a puppy that is comfortable with being physically handled will help not only with nail trims but vet appointments and tailgate checks as well.

Frequency: Though your puppy will not need their nails trimmed multiple times a week, spending time a few days a week keeping them comfortable being handled and put into a nail trimming position will help them become more tolerant of physical handling. You should work this into your weekly routine.

Retrieving

Extending Marks

Overview: This drill will help your puppy build confidence to expand further to look for retrieves. It is common for puppies to short mark a retrieve. They need to learn to keep pushing out and expanding past the distances they are comfortable retrieving.

Extending Marks

Overview: Helping your puppy learn to look for marks (retrieves) that aren’t thrown from your own hand is very important to improve your puppy’s retrieving ability. Not only will this help your puppy look for retrieves that don’t come from your hand, but it will also help increase the distances at which your puppy can retrieve.

Complimentary Goals

Field Work

Hunting Birds In The Field

Overview: You will be expanding on the last lesson of developing your puppy’s flushing and marking instincts. This exercise takes a lot of focus and preparation. A lot of the training goals you have been working on up until this point are going to play a role in your fieldwork from collar conditioning recall, off-leash free runs to learn to hunt and search a field, bird introductions and gunfire introductions. You will also be incorporating some of the skills learned from the retrieving drills you have been doing to help your puppy mark shot birds.

Key Takeaway: Make sure you are keeping your puppy in gun range. They will be keying off of scent and moving into flush immediately when they smell a bird, so be ready to handle your puppy if they are ranging too far, but also be ready to shoot a flushed bird when your puppy is getting “birdie”.

Supporting Documents

Here are some links that will be helpful for this week’s training goals:

Shopping List: Week 13-28 Of Training

Sample Training Routine: Week 17-20

Daily Activity Journal

Weekly Training Checklist

Schedule a Video Consult

We would love to set up a consult with you. Please sign up here to schedule a video consult. This is a great way to connect with us to ask questions about the training goals for this week or to schedule a video check in to show us where your pup is at in their training journey. We look forward to answering your questions and working with you and your pup!