Teaching a New Dog Old Tricks

I am currently in the process of training my brown Labrador puppy, Milo, as a gun dog. He is brilliant fun and full of energy, the perfect partner for a day’s shooting in the field.

Our training has been going very well so far, by the time Milo was 10 weeks old he was responding to ‘sit’ commands before being given food and knew basic return commands which we taught him through play. He is now nearly four months old and we have just started to introduce retrieving games, which has given us some hilarious results so far.

The first time we tried to get him to fetch and return his favourite toy, Milo sat whimpering at us trying to understand why we had taken it off him and thrown it away. He eventually got the hang of it though and has since been bringing us ‘gifts’ of all sorts, once even a frog from a neighbour’s pond!

The next big challenge for Milo will be learning to walk on his lead, heeling and staying. I fear staying might be one of the hardest tasks for him, but once he has mastered these commands he will then be introduced to the guns and game. I can’t wait to see how well he performs when finally on the field, I am sure he will make me very proud!