New to this! (Opinions wanted)

[Murrisha]

I cannot thank all of you enough for all the advice and suggestions! But, I won't be ready to get him into any sort of sport until after I have surgery in December. I have a bad knee and there would be no way for me to run with him for agility, sit in a cramped blind, or stalk through the field for miles. That gives us plenty of time to get him used to the basics of obedience. He's very eager to please and is catching onto commands quickly. Whenever he gets in trouble, he sits or lays down and looks at us like, "What? I'm being good; see, you didn't even need to tell me this time!" We took him to an experienced trainer who shows her dogs and involves them in sports and she agreed that he was bred to run and would really adapt well to some sort of active job. He will be enrolled in her obedience class when the next round starts in November.

Teller and I have been bonding very nicely and he seems to have attached to me the most of anybody. He follows me around, sleeps in my room, cuddles me, and brings me his toys. It will also be a while before we get into hunting as I need to purchase a shotgun and some instruction myself, lol. But, I thought it would be a very nice bonding experience for us both to go through that journey together. We are getting him an e-collar as well. We've also been working on the whoa command and if he sees a bird and freezes without pointing, he has started to do so when I tell him to. On a side note, is it normal for him to go after and point to squirrels? I've never had a dog show any interest in them. We have been working on the leave it command, but I don't want him to get confused and ignore all game. It's not a huge deal to me either, just curious.

[TuMicks]

I totally hear you about the knee thing.

There are some serious hunters on this site, that's for sure. I'm not one of them because I couldn't hit anything that is moving or most things that are standing still. There's a learning curve, I think to be a competent hunter and it involves getting the right shotgun and becoming proficient with it. That's certainly a worthwhile thing.

Whereas maybe I could get into hunting... I just went straight to the thing that floats my boat and that involves working my labs and earning titles in AKC Hunt Tests. Maybe I'll do FT's if I stay healthy long enough to get there. But for now HT's are a huge and exciting challenge for me and my dog. Consider how cool it is to be looking forward to going into next Spring with a young dog that's steady, marks like a laser beam, runs blinds at full-tilt, slams on the breaks on a whistle and takes a an accurate cast.

OK... true, we haven't actually done any of that in an actual HT. But we are ready to try. I'm pumped about it.

Happily there are hunters on this forum that are tolerant of and helpful to me and I'm grateful for them.

[Anna Scott]

I know your dog is a little past the puppy stage but one of the DVD I really like is Sound Beginnings by Jackie Merten. She has a good section on obedience and beginning marking. As you will be laid up for a short time you could work with her ideas on obedience. A class is a great start. Good luck.