You are fine. The learning process is long. It takes awhile for a dog to learn a command. I have a 5 1/2 month oldenglish setter and she is about where you are. She's at the point where she won't listen off leash but on leash she's fine.

There are a few things I do to teach my dog. First, english pointers and setters are not natural retrievers. Some people don't mind though, some people do force fetching. I'm one of the first but here is what I do, I have a long leash. I toss a toy (bumper) just far enough for the dog to run and get it and still within reach of the leash. If she doesn't come I reel her in.At night I use my hallway with all the door closed.

She has been on the chain gang for a while but stopped as the time for her to calm down has gone down drastically. So, here is what I do. I take her for a run for an hour and let her burn up energy. Then I do a 15min to 30min training session depending upon how quickly she does it, ie. we don't stop until she does what I want her to do. Mainly working on whoa and heel.

When I feed the dog, I woah her. She is steady. Two blows from the whistle and I let her go.A week of this then I started useing the command lead although I still do it. She's been doing fine during training session for her age.Now, when she's running too far away, 2 whistle blows calls her to me. I stop training session when I can woah her, walk in a 5' circle around her, then call her to heal. Then I do a heal - woah combo till I reach the car. ie, I woah her then walk ahead abit then heel her.

For heeling I use a command lead. Its heavy braided rope that you can buy at Lion County Supply (www.lcsupply.com). On days she won't woah, I'll tie it around her belly also, so I can handle her better. You may wanna use gloves as the rope will burn you. This as opposed to a choke collar. The command lead pinches instead of choking the dog.

OB classes are good but you may wanna tell the instructor to teach the dog woah instead of sit and stay. Waterfowl dogs sit and stay. Pointing dogs woah. If the dogs on point, you woah him and not sit and stay.

As for the nailing gun, I don't know what to tell you but try to keep the dog away from the sound till you introduce the gun. You should be introducing the dog to birdsabout now. Get his prey drive going. You should be seeing his prey drive developing. After a few birds, fire a .22 blank and check his reactions. If he reacts then put away the gun and take it slower with a toy cap gun. If not, then fire a few more until he associates the noise with birds. You can also have a friend to fire the .22 blank for afar (around 150 yards) then walk closer and closer each time a bird flushes to fire the gun if the dog don't react.

Don't worry as my dog is not perfect either. Whenever I call her, she comes and just stay out of my reach. When woahing her, she will get distracted easily but she knows she cant get away so she just stands there looking which I then can walk around her then I have to do it again. Other times she gets frustrated and starts playing with the command lead then whines and jumps on me. Heeling she's always getting distracted by floating leaves, feathers, little pieces of trash, etc. A slight tug will get her attention back.

Isn't it a wonderful time? You should start seeingthe dog in the puppy. Train it properly and you'll have yourself an awesome dog. Good luck and don't let the puppy drive you to hysterics