Call me crazy
I am new to this whole retriever thing... I would much rather be chasing hounds around the sierras after bigger better critters than sitting in a swamp shooting at ducks. Don' t get me wrong, I absolutely love duck hunting but my heart will always be with a pack of ball mouthed walkers or any type of hound. Now on to my question...So I buy a yellow lab pup have absolutely no clue on how to train him past OB, Join a local club tell them that all I want to do is hunt with him and have no intentions on training to FT/HT. Well I like all the people at this club, they are all very nice and helpfull people, but since I told them I have no interest in HT/FT' s they are kinda like " Why the hell not?" Going to the clubs training days and watching them set up and seeing how things are done I am utterly confused... These hunt tests and field trials are set up to test a dogs hunting ability and training and also to re-created to be " as close to a hunting situation as possible" Now to me that is non-sense... These are my reasons for thinking these things and maybe someone can give me a better answer than what everyone else has told me... To me having someone blow a duck call from where the bird is being thrown from is somewhat understandable because in hunting yes a duck will or will not quack when you shoot it...but why on earth would there be a shot from anywhere else other than where the handler and the dog is? NEVER in the entire time I have been hunting has one of my friends set himself and his dog away from where our blind is and wait for us to shoot ducks so he could send his dog to retrieve them. These test are supposed to be like the real thing, but this just seems like common sense to me! I ask people this at the club and they look at me like I am the crazy one! How many people run these tests but never hunt? I dunno, maybe like I said I am the crazy one! Someone please inlighten me!
YL03