Board and Train

[LaZyDayZ]

A few months back my family answered an ad for free dog to good home.

We had been looking for a family dog since our faithful of many years passed away last fall.

Too our surprise it turned out to be a 9 month old Chesapeake Bay retriever. Not knowing the breed I did a little research and found them to be exceptional kid dogs and we took her home.

It wasn’t a month later she started to wheeze and to make a long story short a $600 vet bill she is all good to go. (no longer free pet, but she was worth every penny).

She had to be on lite activity for a month & ½ to heal up after surgery. Well she is good to go now and really in need of some obedience training.

I have tried working with her but with limited amount of time and no proper training myself my wife and I have decided we want to have her board and trained with a follow up class to give me some advice on making it stick when she comes home.

We are looking for just basic obedience training, come, sit, lay, stay, and heal.

Can any of you point me to a trainer not to far from Owatonna that offers this type of training?

Thanks,

[mamohr686]

The training commands you mentioned are very basic and easy to do. My suggestion would be to first find out about and obedience classes in your area. Most pet stores and your vet should have this info or contact info. It is cheap (they were about $10 a weekly sesion for me) and the instuctor will show you what to do, then you just need to practice the commands. It will also help your dog get better socialized and behave better around other dogs. In my experience chessies are more of one person dogs, if you send them off to a trainer they may not listen to you if you're not involved in the training. A pro trainer will cost about $500 a month for training and boarding but may be able to achieve the results faster, but you shouldn't need one unless you have some serious behavior problems. Training books and videos are also everywhere and a great place to start. Get the family involved and have everyone participate in the training, it's a lot of fun.

[wallmounter]

Lazy- Contact Ed Fritz at Wildlife Kennels. He is just north of Morristown right by Almen's Gun Shop. He is an amazing trainer (he has a HSOforum just google wildlife kennels). He has my pup now for some more advanced training but he does both board/train and allows you to go out there at your schedule and for $25/1hr session he will show you some methods/techniques.

Like it was stated earlier, the training you are looking for is pretty basic, but as a first time owner myself it is a great tool to have someone SHOW you things and critique you rather than just reading a book and going at it blindly.

Good luck with the pup, they sure are fun!

[LaZyDayZ]

mamohr686 - Thanks for the advice, I will be doing some reading and continuing her training but right now I really need to get some help from a pro.

wallmounter - Thanks for the info, I talked to Ed and will be meeting with him next Friday.

[wallmounter]

Good to hear, I was just out to Ed's last night to see my pup and the progress he has made with my pup is amazing. You'll be suprised what he can do with your pup in one session and how fast he can help you.

Good Luck

[LaZyDayZ]

Just wanted to update this.

we did not feel comfortable with choker collar or being very aggressive with the dog.

Ed was leary of E collar because of injury but managed to get creative and with patience really turned her around.

She now comes, sits, heals on and off leash and I have had traing on how to enforce this and take it even further.

Thanks wallmounter and thanks Ed.

[wallmounter]

Good to hear, Ed does wonderful things. Enjoy that pup.