Letters from our extended family of Labrador lovers

Hi Deanna,
Just wanted to give you an update on Talon’s first birthday.  What a year
it’s been for him!!  First, I want to congratulate you and your family for
providing the genes for me to mold a feisty, happy puppy into a hunting machine
and constant companion.  I have trained labs in the past to hunt and go to
field trials, but this dog beats them all!  His first morning home he
fetched the Sunday paper (with the Abbott pounce!!) and has never missed the
paper yet.  Now, he even likes to get the mail! He eagerly took to whistle
and hand signals to learn how to actually sit, stay and come (most importantly
STAY!!) by 10 weeks.  He was fetching dummies by 12 weeks and was water
retrieving at 14 weeks.  By 20 weeks, he was handling multiple blind
retrieves and by 5 months was quartering fields.  At 6 months we went on
our first hunt near Tomahawk WS (after a 17 hr drive) for grouse and woodcock
(4 & 3 retrieves respectively).  He followed the crowd of 5 other dogs
at first, but then developed his own cadence and in the end, they started
following him.  He had his first lake swim with the crowd (1 Chocolate Lab
and 4 Goldens), and out swam all the other dogs to dummies in the water. 
They ranged in age from 1 yr to 6 yr.  I had to make him sit and stay to
let the other dogs have a chance!!  At 9 months, he went to Sooner for his
first duck hunt covering 3 hunters (7 retrieves), then went to the Salt Plains
2 weeks later covering 5 hunters (24 retrieves), and his 3rd hunt was at the
737 Duck Club near Tecumseh covering 4 hunters on our side of a pit blind (20
retrieves).  He had to make the longer blind retrieves that a 3 year old
Black Lab field trial washout with 2 years of hunting under his belt for the
other side of the pit blind.  I had worked with him in the pool with
decoys back in October on going after diving wounded ducks, so he knew how to
deal with them.  He had his first experience with a diver and chased him
until he caught him.  At the Salt Plains, he found a wounded duck that one
of our partners shot 2 hours earlier that was 400 yards away that no one saw go
down while we were picking up decoys.  His last 4 duck hunts were at
Sooner, but the hunting really fell off due to such warm weather.  So far,
he has not lost a downed bird.  I also trained him to fetch decoys, which
came in handy on our last hunt at Sooner.  We only brought 1 pair of
waders for an afternoon hunt because we weren’t going to put that many out and
found out that the waders had a “new” hole in them.  We waded
out as far as we could with knee boots and threw the decoys out as far as we
could.  Talon brought them back when we were done. He had a tough time
because some L weights got hung up in the rock joints, so he really had to pull
them hard.  We had one pheasant hunt in KS, but the birds and weather
didn’t cooperate. 
He really uses his nose well, as we do a lot of training at night or in the
house with the lights off.  He even has learned to track deer blood. 
His vocabulary is easily over 150 words and knows his toys by name.  He
takes directions in 3D- up, down, left, right, back, too far or come, he can go
around fences/obstacles/houses or jump over things, and get in the brush. 
When quartering a field, I tell him “over” to change directions and
‘too far’ to set his range.  I can tell him which bird to get in a 4 bird
sequence, but he usually will get the back one first with no instruction. 
We usually work on getting the back bird first as a default no matter the order
or direction they are thrown/launched.  We still work on blind retrieves
all the time.  He seems to have a better memory than I do half the
time!  We use a lot of games to make his training fun.  For instance,
he is the wide retriever on our football team.  I send him out on a route
without throwing the dummy or smaller than regulation football to teach him to
follow a line and then make him cut left or right (or just go long) and then
throw the ball in front of him.  He loves being the goalie on the soccer
team.  Getting a ball by him is tuff!  He’ll pounce on it or trap it
with either paw.  We play a lot of hide and seek (one of his favorite!) in
the dark.  We’ll hide different toys inside or out and make him find
them.  I’ve got him working on finding antler sheds now.
OK, enough of that!  The bottom line is Talon is a wonderful companion and
very well mannered.  He has a low keyed demeanor and is not your usual
high strung puppy.  He has gone to several Rover.com houses when we have
to travel without him and they spoil him rotten (sofas, beds, etc.) but they
always compliment him on his behavior.  He will put a strain on the leash
to visit other dogs at the vet, but on the street, I walk him off leash to get
him used to staying close on our walks out to the field and he heels.  I
don’t use a shock collar and the dog has never been hit.  He loves to
please and food always gets his attention.  We recently built a ramp down
into our storm shelter and it took about 3 weeks to train him to go down
starting on regular stairs and then working into the shelter. 
Our kids left us for college, so when they come home, it’s crazyville!! 
Now that we have created a fetching monster, it’s nice to have someone come
home and play with the dog instead of working him all the time.  One of
their friends has an Abbott lab and they compared notes.  Both have a
really long tongues, like to pounce on their victims, and both like to sleep on
their back!!  Anyway, I attached some pictures of Talon for you and just
wanted to let you know how much we love him and appreciate his work ethic you
bred into him.  We will definitely be back for another puppy in 4 years!!

The Silvers (Ken, Carol, Brandon, Jackson, Clayton, Talon)
PS: Talon will be going to the lake for his birthday today!

Deanna,

Murphy is pointing on her own at various times. Just finished a backyard “training session”. Murf is sitting and staying until I release her, minutes at a time. With the pheasant dummy she will wait until I tell her to “Bust it” before she moves. This past week she has made good progress. 

She is gonna make a dog for sure. Gun training very soon. I have trained many dogs not to fear the noise. The first bang is heard from inside the truck, etc. at the practice range,,,,first shots fired in wide open fields outside the truck,,,no echo, echo sometimes spooks them, etc. 

Project and friendship going well! I will keep you posted. 

Kent