Scott Linden Outdoors

I get thousands of questions from viewers, and many have to do with dog training. With Flick, I’m doing my best to follow my own advice: pick a trainer/guru and stick with his/her method.

If you’ve trained a dog or ten, you know that’s easier said than done. Maybe we have “better” ideas, think our dog is “different” and needs a method other than what’s worked for thousands of others. Or, as in my case, all of the above plus outright laziness. When you have a pup with incredible genetics, you can often get away with it … for a while. But eventually, the pheasants come home to roost and it may be too late.

So that I don’t blow it (too much), I’ve taken to re-reading and re-viewing books and DVDs most nights. In recent evenings from both Larry Mueller’s book and that authored by the Monks of New Skete, the 14-week age was noted as problematic – when pups are becoming less dependent on their human and more um, adventurous. In other words, be ready for them to start running off.

Twice.

Got lucky in both instances, and then read another part of Larry’s book where he suggests that kind of behavior often occurs when you’re returning from a training or exercise session and pup thinks all the fun is about to end. Yep.

So now we take alternate routes back from our fields, keep the checkcord in hand, and train our way back to the gate to keep his mind occupied.

I find myself in need of as much training as Flick.