re: Dropping 6 month old future duck dog off at the trainer today

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Train your dogs people. Most rewarding process I've ever had.

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I was going to go the trainer route because I thought I didn't have the time to do the puppy thing all over again but holy shite the cost. I ended up training my YLF myself and although there have been many times I wondered if I made the right decision, I have finally cleared the hurdle as she is just about complete and like you said, that one on one with your own dog is priceless. The only negative aspect I can think of to training on my own is I can't run her in near the amount of Hunt Tests I could get out of her if she was at a trainer and that sucks cause the fringe benefit of having a good dog with a trainer is picking up titles if the dog is decent.

I put my dog in training for 4.5 months at 1.5 yrs old. Work and schooling make it difficult to train a dog with force fetch, hand signals, blind retrieves, and even getting them used to a gun going off (frowned upon in the city).

What I did was taught her basic obedience - sit, stay, fetch, lay down, swimming, etc. Introduction to dead birds and fetching them is something I did also. All this allowed a bond to start to form (on top of all the other things we did together). I visited my dog, Roux, twice a month and spent the day with her running her with the trainer's supervision and he taught me to run her as well (what i should expect her to do and what commands/routines i should use/expect). Gotta be there to work with her/him. Many people think they can just send their dog off for 6+ months and expect him/her to act with you like it did with the trainer - not the case.