jgttechjunkie

Siegfried absolutely loves water. He readily swims in hot weather or cold weather. Of course it is much warmer here in Winter.

He will naturally retrieve quite well, but my training was a bit amiss so he should be better and gets away with too much. He was the first gun dog I have attempted to train. The next will be much better. Unfortunately even though I have tried to find one and many other acquaintances have also for themselves, there is not such a thing as a professional gun dog trainer anywhere near.

As a puppy (and still does) when shooting rabbits he naturally lay down or sat when he sees me raise a rifle or shotgun. He was a very natural pointer but around 8 months to 15 months when he suddenly took on pointing at everything and anything unfortunately was a period in which I was not able to be in the field (work commitments - a company public listing). He points well though but because he has so much freedom has learned to hunt solo. He is always in game country when with me when I am working. So he is more of a pet than an ideal gun dog. Nevertheless he is a great companion dog.

Has anyone got any ideas on how to train a dog from "self-hunting" when they have so much freedom? Apart from caging or chaining him for extended periods when not 'under-control' which I won't do, I am not sure how such an attitude could be changed. Even with a new younger dog ???