For me, this is about our little rescue dog, Riley. She came to us via a friend of a friend referral.
A young couple bought her at a pet store, (of all places) knowing absolutely zero about owning a high powered German bird dog. She evidently drove them crazy with her unhinged behavior.
She was very quiet and withdrawn on the hour drive home. Apparently totally traumatized by the sudden loss of her previous family, and was one of the toughest training challenges I have ever had. And there's been quite a few.
Her previous home was a small house with about a 10' by 40' back yard, a couple of kids, and the mother expecting a baby in about a month.
I'm guessing her exercise came from rough-housing through-out the home. She was totally out of control! She lives in the country now, and runs and plays with her adopted sisters every day.
Riley was a little stand-offish, at our initial meeting. She suffered from extreme separation anxiety, and was very destructive when left alone.
I noticed she was object shy, so I suspect there may have been a little bit of abuse from her previous owners. Off leash, she tended to want to run away.
After a pretty rough 6 months or so, we started seeing progress. Training was strict, but absolutely limited to e-collar, verbal commands, and verbal punishment. No physical (hitting) ever! The most extreme punishment was picking her up by the scruff, and dropping her. That, and verbal is all!
Trained her on pigeons, and slowly introduced guns. Starting with .22 RF snake shot out of a rifle.
Then the .410, where we actually shot birds, worked up pretty quickly to the 12 ga. No sign of gun shyness, which was my biggest fear. She is a fairly reliable retriever, with a very strong prey drive. At 45 lbs, she is a very compact, and highly athletic pup. After a tough year of intensive training, she has become a push-button dog, and maybe one of my all time favorites.
Finally, at the end of the quail season, I managed to shoot one Gambel's quail for her. She's hooked, and is constantly on the lookout for more!
Here's a few pics:
Attachment 98848
Attachment 98849
Attachment 98850
Attachment 98851
Attachment 98852
Threaded Mode