Written by Paul and Julie Knutson

This timeline, is only a brief guideline to give you an idea of where you should be with your training. We recommend you purchase this book. Paul and Julie Knutson can be reached at gclabs@aol.com.

The training process for a retriever that points is a little longer than that for a conventional flushing retriever. Though there are only a few differences in the training of these retrievers, the development of a staunch and stylish point in a naturally pointing retriever takes time and the upland related training should be done at appropriate times within the overall training of a good retriever.

The following list highlights the steps in the process of developing a pointing Labrador. One that will respond at home or in the field, that will retrieve any bird and deliver immediately to hand, that will love to look for wild upland birds, point them and hold the point until the bird is flushed, continue to be steady until the bird is shot and sent for the retrieve – all with an enthusiastic teamwork attitude.

The puppy comes to you free of preconceptions, bad habits, or any idea about what its role in the world is. It will learn all those things in the first few months you have it. Be sure you teach it what you want it to know for a lifetime.

For the dog that will be family member and hunting buddy, you want a pup that is socialized, affectionate, confident that it is in a good place and life is a pleasure. This pup must also learn that it has behavioral guidelines; it cannot bite, make undue noise, destroy things or refuse to listen to you when you ask reasonable things of it. Young pups can learn to come when called, bring back all retrieved items and to stick with you wherever you are.

Use the skill and fun of retrieving to develop a passion for work on the part of your pup. Throw a single puppy bumper 2 or 3 times a day and no more for your dog. This way your pup learns when the bumper comes out, great things are going to happen. When the pup performs its retrieves well, the bumper goes away until tomorrow. This generates great passion and ethics for retrieving. Use this attitude to begin to introduce your pup to the concept of looking forward to doing things with you, responding to you, and doing what you ask as a way of life. This will make all subsequent training much easier.

Do not begin obedience training before the pup is mentally ready. Obedience training on a very young dog should take a back seat to retrieving. At the same time, retrieving should be an activity in which a pup is restrained somewhat to watch the puppy bumper be thrown, released on a single command, conventionally its name, and encouraged to return with it enthusiastically with the command you will eventually use in the field. "Here" and the multiple toot-toot of the "here" whistle are simple commands that will translate easily to advanced work. If restraining a pup on a retrieve lessens its desire to retrieve, use common sense and stop restraining the pup. Love of retrieving is the goal. A pup that does not want to go get a simple tossed object will not learn to love to hunt for well-hidden wild birds. On the other hand, if the pup is fanatical about retrieving, use restraint to teach the pup to begin to focus, wait for your cues and to control itself at least somewhat. If the pup can take more strict obedience training, begin that so long as it does not detract from desire to retrieve.

Always continue daily retrieves 3 or 4 times. That will maintain a very positive attitude in a pup for the dryer obedience and control work. Teaching young dog obedience should be a positive thing for the dog. Not an easy thing, but a positive thing. Start by throwing a couple of "happy bumpers" to get the dog excited and in good state of mind.

Then begin by teaching heel, sit and here on a leash and choke chain. Be fairly demanding, requiring that the dog walk at your side, at your speed, sitting when you stop. Do this on a young dog for only a few moments, stopping before you exhaust their attention span. End with a couple more "Happy bumpers" and quit. This way your dog will look forward to this activity, you can be quite demanding, make good progress and have the dog think it is all great fun.

For the future superstar pointing Lab you hope to own, one of the most important things you can do is introduce your youngster to wild birds it cannot catch. This is, next to developing a love of retrieving, the most important thing you can do to develop boldness on birds, bring out the point and acquaint your dog with one of its ultimate objectives.

There are no rules, no chains or ropes, nothing but you, the pup and some birds in the cover the pup can find, chase, get excited about and at some point – point. It is far easier to train a pointing retriever to be a great hunter when at its developmental stages you "turned on the light" about upland hunting by exposing the pup to wild birds hidden in the cover. It takes much longer, and is sometimes very difficult to accomplish this with a more mature dog that already have a view on what it is to do in its life. Meadowlarks and robins do not fall into this category. Game birds or pigeons are required to teach the dog that is its mission upland hunting in the field. Captured, tethered birds it can catch will do nothing but teach it to catch birds and not point them.

Avoid ruining the point on an avid pointing retriever. Do not attempt to whoa or stop a young pup finding birds. You must let nature do its own thing here. You can implement training and control later when the dog can understand clearly what you are asking.

A pup this young should not be "whoa-broken", in which the requirement to stand and not move their feet is strictly enforced. The concept should be introduced and continually reinforced however. The command "whoa" should mean "do not move your feet" and nothing else. When taught, it should not be in association with birds or anything else, just the command to remain on all four feet, not moving. After each daily training session, the pup should be "whoa´ed", and this should be a pleasant activity for the dog. Getting a pup at this age to remain still is often amusing, but in the long run, a staunch point will be well worth it.

By this time your pup should fully understand the game of retrieving, and be quite ethical about, waiting to be sent (sort of), hunting the area of the fall and returning directly to you. The pup should also be very accomplished at heel, sit and here, and begin to be able to do those things with leash in hand or with leash dropped. The pup should initiate an enthusiastic hunt the minute it hears "hunt ´em up" for upland birds, being very bold on birds. This work in the upland field will have to stop because you do not have the controls to stop the dog from trying hard to catch and chase birds. Once they are truly bold, stop this work until later.

This is the age at which dogs are most easily force fetched, a process through which they are taught to pick up whatever directed, hold it until you take it from them.

It is the tool through which you can require a dog to pick up any bird in any condition, and bring it all the way back to you without depositing at the shoreline or otherwise not delivering as you need them to. The pup should also begin the process of being whoa-broken, such that the command given when the dog is walking, will result in an immediate cessation of movement. The "do not move your feet" command can now be used in the presence of a tossed bumper or live bird. Remember never to release your dog to retrieve the object. Whoa does not mean "wait to retrieve", it only means "do not move your feet." Important distinction.

Dogs at this age should be bold on birds, force fetched, ready to be steady on marked retrieves and well into being whoa-broken. Depending upon the individual development of the dog, which can be quite different for different animals, this is the time the dogs are taught to be steady on retrieving. They are made to wait, no matter how excited they may be, until you are ready to send them on a retrieve. This is done merely by strongly enforcing the sit command. It is not as difficult as many training techniques make it sound. Your strong obedience foundation will make this very achievable. It is in these months that you fully whoa-break your dog. You want a dog that when you give the "whoa" command, will stop immediately even if running or walking, will honor the command even if you shoot a gun and throw a bird, or have a live chukar walking right under its nose. This takes time and patience, and again, is well worth it once actually hunting in the field. Your dog should deliver to hand, whatever you have thrown or shot. Your dog should walk off lead with you easily without constant reinforcement.

When your dog is working with you at this level, hunting is the easy part. It is also the part in which your dog will learn to be a hunter. To this point, you have acquired the tools to use to teach your dog in what range you want it to quarter, depending on your hunting style, where and what you hunt. Your dog should stop and watch any bird flying and shot, and wait to be sent for it. Your dog should know to look for birds in the field, and when it does begin to point them for you, you have the tools to require it to hold the point as long as you may need it. Only hunting will teach hunting. If you spend the first year of your pup wisely, you will have an accomplished, controllable, enthusiastic hunting dog that can learn to hunt just the way you would like him or her to hunt – as a team.

There are more tools than these mentioned here. Dogs can be taught to run blind retrieves. These are retrieves in which the dog is sent in the direction of a bird that the dog has not seen. They can be stopped on a whistle and cast in the direction of the bird, if they veer off in another. In this way, all birds shot can be retrieved, instead of only those seen by the dog. Dogs can also be taught to run multiple retrieves, remembering 2, 3 or 4 birds downed, and retrieving all of them. This takes months to teach in a lasting and useful manner, and these tools are very useful on a hunting dog as well.

The development of these tools is based on the foundation mentioned earlier, and should wait until the dog is accomplished at the basic skills. When the dog is mature enough to really understand the more advanced requirements, those are most easily accomplished as a continuation of the basic skills.