New Shed Dog

So I adopted a 7-year-old chocolate lab. What kind of basic obedience do we need to work on? And other than actual sheds, what do you guys use for training?

 

Following along. We have a 10 week old we’ll be working on. Congrats on the new dog

 

Thanks. We took him out to the lake and he had a blast this last week


Sent from my iPhone using Bowhunting.com Forums

 

Rack Wax and real sheds work the best. A lot of praise fo your dog is also huge, I used treats which is not recommend. It takes an extreme amount of time, like every day, to train most dogs to put there nose to the grind stone for sheds. I started with allowing my dog to chew on a fresh shed, which is contrary to what you will read in books. I then started to put them in the grass and allow the dog to find them. From there I went to hiding them in the bushes around my yard and house, gradually going to cornfields and the woods and hiding them. My dog found his first one when he was just 9 months old and I was shocked. Like I said continued training is a must, even after your dog is older as I have learned. It is much harder to get them back to the mindset once the ball is dropped. Up until last season my dog had found nearly 400 in his first 4 years (you can subtract 9 mos from that as this was puppy time.) Last year we did not have time to look as much due to some unhealthy events with family and I can tell he has slipped some.

Good luck to you guys! I’m not a professional trainer by any means. Some dogs are born to find sheds and others are not.

 

dbl lung, seems like your approach works. Been watching the game warden shows a lot and when the K-9 finds an empty cartridge, feathers, etc. the fellow tosses a toy for the dog to play with for a few minutes. Wondering if I can train my Chihuahua mix to find sheds?

 

I have a 4 month old beagle and was interested as well... I know beagles are rabbit dogs, but I'm not a big rabbit hunter, rather spend my time archery hunting/preparing for archery and was curious about getting her into shed hunting.

 

Guys I believe any dog can be trained to find sheds. But there are dogs that will be easier to train, almost like they are born to find shed antlers. Time is #1 and patience is #2 when trying to train them.