Tacoma, Labrador Retriever

Tacoma has been a pleasure to have. He has such a great manner to him. He has learnt well his commands; I have taught him to "Come", "Sit", informal "Heel". I got him retrieving a bumper but since he is still a pup, he wants to play some. At home he is well socialized and I can take him anywhere. He was lightly introduced to water and he should have no problems with it. As for birds, he loves picking them up. For a puppy, Tacoma has done a great job. In a couple of weeks, he will have to go home but maybe I can work with him some more in the future.

Allie is coming along rather well. Here she is pointing a wing on the string. She has pointed planted birds, too - but, it is rather hard trying to take a photo while steadying her. And, it looks like she is ready to go into heat.

Long and cut

Here is Duke on the whoa table. This time he had a little trouble up there because Kathy was taking his photo. I built this table for whoa training and for hold training. The dogs love to jump off it when they are loose in the yard.

Now that Duke has been with me for awhile; I have gotten to see more of his training. I planted a couple of pigeons in yard to see if he could point them out. The first bird he wasn't too impressive with the find; he was almost on the bird before he pointed. The second bird he was walking by and got the scent cone and slammed a point that was almost breath taking. I am getting Duke more used to the leash to show him the heel command. He was trained to come with the command "here" so I may have to find a command that is not too close in resemblance to heel - maybe something in Spanish. (I teach my dogs commands in Spanish, too). I worked him on the whoa table and he knows "whoa", so I am very happy with that. His kennel (crate) training is coming along now. He goes in by himself but I do cheat with the kennel training; I give the dogs a treat after they go in. My next goal is to get him to retrieve. This weekend, I am going to take him out and do some field training on birds with a .22 blank pistol and see how it goes with him (I was told that he has had this before).