Rachael's journey starts here

I am recording my chocolate labrador's journey from puppy to fully trained working gundog. I hope you'll join us along the way!

Rachael’s Journey is moving!

by admin on November 8, 2012

Rachael is now beginning the training which will enable her to be a working gundog.

And I have decided to merge Rachael’s Journey with my main gundog blog: Totally Gundogs.

I will be updating Rachael’s Journey as a regular slot on Thursdays.

I do hope you will join us there!

 

 

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Busting into the hen house!

Rachael has begun to take an interest in dis-assembling my chicken run. Her objective is not the chickens within,  but the kitchen scraps that we feed to them. Rachael has long been appalled by the thought of good food being given to a bunch of stupid chickens. But this is the first time she has [...]

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Discriminating between cue words

I have taught Rachael a brief sit in the kitchen. I started out by clicking and treating any sit,  then  progressed quite quickly to clicking for only really fast sits. After a couple of days I started adding the cue word ‘sit’. I am gradually adding a little bit of duration to this sit.  Just [...]

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Getting ready to train

Well, I seem to be back in action,  after a fashion anyway! And I intend to get some real training underway now. Himself has been seafishing and Rachael is in heaven. I thought it might be fun to take some pictures of her enjoying her breakfast. But instead she decided to have a silly turn, [...]

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Learning fast

Rachael is learning very fast She loves walking along next to me and has picked up off lead heel position beautifully within the confines of her play area. But this morning I had a timely reminder of how dogs can easily learn bad habits too,  if we are not careful. Every morning when I go [...]

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Taking treats nicely

Because I will be using food for some of Rachael’s early training,  I have spent some time recently teaching Rachael some basic ‘manners’  around treats. Specifically  that she mustn’t try and grab at the treats or ‘help herself’ in any way. No grabbing Whether training treats are in bag attached to my belt,  or whether [...]

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Rachael goes to town

Rachael is now familiar with the traffic and activity in our village. So this week we went up a notch and took her into town. The sun was shining,  the streets thronged with people. Cafes were packed and tables spilled out onto the pavements. Rachael picked her way in amongst all the legs and buggies [...]

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Follow my leader: keep your Labrador puppy close

Rachael and I have made a second short video. It’s all about ‘keeping your labrador puppy close’  and you can watch it by clicking the play button below. Rachael is three and a half months old now and looking more mature with every week that passes. Sleeping Solo The biggest change in Rachael’s world this [...]

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Rachael’s Mum and Dad

It will be interesting to see whether Rachael bears any resemblance to either of her parents when she grows up. The are both very handsome to my eye Tom The  dog on the right is Tom (Wylanbriar Maybe Tomorrow), Rachael’s father.  Tom works hard each winter as a picking-up dog on shoots in the South [...]

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Rachael out and about

Rachael has had a busy few days. We have been making the most of the sunshine to make some more training videos. And I have been taking Rachael up our lane towards the village centre to meet people and vehicles (from a safe distance) all at ground level now that she is fully vaccinated. We [...]

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