Puppy Training in Billings, MT
Gun Dog Training Starts Young
Whether your puppy is fit for gun dog training often depends on the experience your puppy has had during the first six months of age. If you do not have time to work with your puppy, retriever training is your next consideration. While obedience training can begin at any age, at Thunder Ridge Kennels, dogs can begin hunting dog training when they are as young as 3 months old.
Puppies do best with training when they are introduced to gentle obedience, manners, socializing, birds, being exposed to gunfire and decoys, and marking in various types of cover at an early age. Repetition and reward is the best program for your puppy to begin with. Puppies still need to have physical contact, learn to have house manners and learn to socialize with the family and with strangers before they can move on to more advanced training.
By Age 6 Months…
At Thunder Ridge Kennels, our puppies will heel, come quickly and sit by the time they are six months old. Puppies will also know manners and understand the “kennel up” command as well as the differences between learning and socializing. The puppies are very responsive to birds and can be doing simple doubles and retrieving at many distances on land and in water. With proper training, you will see how much your puppy/dog loves his job and what he is designed to do.
They enjoy pleasing their owners and being rewarded for a great job, including showing the dog to navigate to the fallen bird through various cover including water, and moderate pressure to build the dog’s confidence and keeping them enthusiastic.
Our puppies will heel, come quickly, and sit by the time they are 6 months old. They will respond to a “here” command. Although puppies develop at different rates, just like people, they should be able to mark, retrieve and hunt the area. The puppies we train at Thunder Ridge Kennels are responsive to birds and can be doing simple doubles and retrieving at many distances on land in water.
START YOUNG
Developing a world class gun dog involves some intense training and the best results are achieved if that training starts young. Starting by 6 months of age is important and the best results are achieved by starting your puppy’s training at around 3 months of age.
BUILD MANNERS
Building manners in your future hunting dog is a big part of the puppy training program here at Thunder Ridge Kennels. Your dog should not only be able to please you, but know how to get along well with others and not have bad habits such as jumping up.
SOCIALIZE
Socialization is a key element of our puppy training program. A good hunting dog knows how to not only love and please their owner, but understands the importance of getting along with other family members, strangers, and other dogs as well.
Puppy Training: In order to determine what kind of retriever your puppy will be, will depend on the experience the puppy has before the age of six months. Starting early with the puppy makes a big difference in his ability to retrieve. If you do not have time to work with the puppy, retriever/pointer training is your next consideration.
Puppies do best with training when they are introduced to gentle obedience, manners, socializing, birds, being exposed to gunfire and decoys and marking in various types of cover. Repetition and reward is the best program to introduce the puppy to. They become enthusiastic for retrieving and it builds their confidence. Puppies still need to have physical contact, learn house manners, and learn to socialize with the family and with strangers. Taking the puppy out in public to parks, recreation areas, etc. will help build their confidence in strange places.
Although we accept puppies at any age, we do prefer to get an early start with training. It helps the puppy get further along before hunting season and it is much easier on the puppy if they learn at an early age what is expected of them. With proper training, you will see how much your puppy/dog loves his job and what he is designed to do. They enjoy pleasing their owners and being rewarded for a great job.
Ready to start training your puppy for hunting? Contact Thunder Ridge Kennels to find out more about how our puppy training program can help you get that perfect hunting dog!
At Thunder Ridge Kennels our puppy training program involves a good deal of work on teaching your puppy manners. They need to learn to please their owners and be rewarded for doing a great job.
Part of pleasing the owner involves the puppy understanding what is expected of them in areas such as: house manners, not jumping on people, getting along with other dogs, and of course, getting along with household members as well as strangers.
During our puppy training program, your puppy will be taught all of these things and we even take the puppy out in public to parks, recreation areas, etc. to help build their confidence in strange places while reinforcing the manners they have been taught.
Another key aspect of our puppy training program here at Thunder Ridge Kennels in Billings, MT involves socialization.
Although socialization training is important to training any puppy, it becomes even more important when dealing with the high energy dog breeds which are most commonly used as gun dogs in the field.
We spend considerable time teaching and reinforcing a variety of socialization skills in every puppy we train. Your puppy will learn the importance of, and be rewarded for, proper socialization skills with other dogs as well as humans, including the owner, family members and even strangers.