6 year old lab

[sheephead24]

im getting a 6 year old purebred black lab tomorrow, the owner cant take care of her anymore. my question is she has never hunted before, is a lab that age trainable or is a young one easier? he said she is very well mannered. also how long does it take to train a lab to be a good bird dog? Thanks

[Ole #1]

A dog that age is trainable, but a younger dog would be much easier to train. If you're only going to hunt upland, the lab might be ok on instinct. If you want to train it for waterfowl, it might be a little tougher.

[leechlake]

I'd suggest first training basic obedience, sit, stay, come. Without that 100% mastery of those commands it makes it hard to train the hunting drills. Nothing worse than having that dog bust through a field pheasant hunting oblivious to the whistle to come back. Pick up a Wolters book Game Dog or Water Dog.

[JIG-A-WHOPPER]

Be very careful if the dog hasn't been around gunfire. Maybe someone has an expert opinion on how to introduce an old dog to the sound of a shotgun for the first time....I have done it with pups but had an interesting experience with a friend who adopted a lab from the shelter. This particular lab liked to hunt and retrieve, but turned into a labrador retreater as soon as the first shot was fired.