Where to get a Lab?

[scdukcaller]

Do you guys know where the best place to get a new lab pup in SC?
I want a good bloodline. Thanks for the help.

[Fish]

Get a dog here.

[Candor]

SCD...can you better define what you are looking for? Which of the following qualities do you want?

1) A dog that will sit still and pick up a dead duck floating in the decoys

2) A dog that you can train to long retrieves and solid on hand signals

3) A hard charging dog with the get'up to go to hell and back for a duck

4) A very mild mannered ho-hum dog

5) A dog that has good, classic Labrador look (not a pinhead)

You can have any of the above and several combinations. As you get more demanding expect the money to get higher. With the different lines of Labradors you can really get almost whatever you want.

[scdukcaller]

I am looking for a puppy to train myself. I would consider one that has had the basic sit, stay and come. I want a dog that has a drive to it. I dont like the block head look. Does this help. Oh and I know the cost can get up there...

[Fish]

"Stay"..."come"...whats that? [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Do some reading. Refer to my earlier post for some good literature. There are lots of good sources out there. Go online and search for retriever training videos and books. Candor's favorite dog beater/trainer is Mike Lardy. You should check him out. It sounds like you need to build your knowledge of training fundementals.

Generally, obedience commands are "here", "heel" & "sit". If you're not married you may not know these yet. The command "stay" is redundant and unnecessary as the dog should remain seated until given another command because....well, you told him to "sit", right.

[Wateree]

Duckcaller swiftcreek kennels in Rembert has two yellow males that they are gonna get rid of. I think they are about 10-12 weeks.

[Hammers down]

Hey fish what if the dog is in two ft. of water and he can't sit down, and you want him to "stay in that very spot" My dog Hammer who is gone now was trained on come,sit,stay,no, back, and dead. As well as go get the clicker, go get momma's woobie, get me a oyster, and many other household chores. I never taught him any type of hand signals, you send him in the direction, he hunted and brought the ducks back. I have not seen many labs in the last ten years that know how to "HUNT". I'd put him up against any dog, any where, any time, in the field, and I know many people who would testify to his abilities. I know alot of people who still use those same commands, and have damn fine hunting dogs. It is not the commands that make the dog, it's the owner. Some of us learned how to train duckdogs from our fathers and granfathers, not from some damn book. Kaki's my third lab and by all indications she's going to be damn good with just sit, stay, no, and dead.
scduckcaller you use any command you want, just be consistant.

[Candor]

anyway...back to the question at hand ....

SCD...most any dog from a reputable breeder that has some hunt test or trials in the bloodline should get you what you are after. You don't necessarily need to have that but if you don't know the line personally then default to the pedigree.

Look for things like FC (field champion), AFC (amateur field champion), SH (senior hunter), MH (master hunter). You would like these titles as close to the puppies as possible (preferably not 5 generations back).

Kennels I would look into, in addition to the one Fishwhistle directed you:
1) Woody Thurmand at Twin Lakes Kennels in NC
http://www.twinlakeskennel.com/breed.html

2) Ray Godwin at Webfoot - http://www.webfootretrievers.com/

3) Matt Rush at Rush Creek
www.rushcreekretrievers.com

There are many more and you may receive some PMs from folks but look at the pedigree. If you find a dog you are interested in send me a PM and we can discuss the pedigree. It is not all about pedigrees but if you don't know both the sire and the dam then it is largely about pedigrees.

I never take peoples word on "well the sire hunts". Any dog with a nose will, to a certain extent, hunt. I, like you, want a dog that will hunt well. And there is a big difference.

One of the signficant benefits you by going with a reputable breeder like Twin Lakes (or others) is that the reputable breeder should have x-rays or OFA certifications of the hips and possibly elbows of the pups parents. Cataract history is important too.

Most "back yard" breeders aren't willing to invest the money to address the long term health of the pups. Hip x-rays are very very important. I would NEVER buy a puppy without them on the parents.

Best of luck and let us know how we can help and we will try not to discuss our dog's affinities for our wives "woobie".

Post up if you have further questions.

[Fish]

Originally posted by Hammers down:
Hey fish what if the dog is in two ft. of water and he can't sit down

Then I guess you wouldn't command him to sit.

A single whistle blast is what I use to stop my dog. He'll pretty much stop in two foot of water, in the grass, in the sand, or hell even in 8 foot of water (though only momentarily) with this single whistle blast. My dog dosen't have a 200 word vocabulary so I try to keep it simple.

[MC]

Best of luck and let us know how we can help and we will try not to discuss our dog's affinities for our wives "woobie".

[img]graemlins/rofl.gif[/img]

[Hammers down]

My dogs are part of the family who know how to "hunt" and how to be a friend. I would never use a whistle to talk to my hunting partner, i refuse to use one with my dog. Whistles are not needed with a Dog who knows how to "hunt". I'm not saying that a whistle is a bad thing, or is not needed for field trials, and other specific duties. But retrievers were bread to retrieve downed waterfowl, to hunt them once they fell to the ground, TO HUNT THEM ON THEIR OWN, without the damn hunter having to tell the dog where the bird is. In the field the hunter only has a general idea where the bird is downed, so the dog must know how to "hunt" . I have watched field trial dog after field trial dog fail in the swamp and in the river because when those wounded birds are moving away from the area, the damn hunter with his whistle keeps blowing away with know idea where the bird actually is, and the LAB HAS KNOW CLUE HOW TO HUNT. A lab that can hunt is a rare animal these days. Fish i'm sure you got a damn fine dog, I'm not saying you trained yours the wrong way, I'm just saying theres more than one way to make a gundog.

[mirroman]

What the hell is a "woobie"???? Does it take batteries????

[Candor]

Originally posted by Hammers down:
But retrievers were bread to retrieve downed waterfowl, to hunt them once they fell to the ground, TO HUNT THEM ON THEIR OWN, without the damn hunter having to tell the dog where the bird is.

actually that couldn't be farther from the truth. Labradors were bred to retrieve fish/fishing supplies from the fishing ships. Cod to be specific. The thick "otter" tails were used to actually lift the dogs.

And with regard to whistles, I don't know a waterfowler alive that doesn't want a dog that knows how to retrieve a duck it didn't see fall.

Picture this situation 2 birds come in you hammer one and he falls into the decoys dead as a stone, the second you cripple and sails behind the blind. Your dog, given his perspective thinks that duck flew off un-scathed because of your poor display of shooting and is intently focused on the dead bird in the decoys. A well trained dog would be told to ignore the duck in the decoys and then cast towards the crippled duck on a blind. You call the dog off of the dead bird, line him on the cripple and send him. He trounces through the 12” deep water, splashing out. You have given him a little bit of a bad line and he needs to be corrected. He simply cannot hear your voice. Cannot when he is running in water hear your voice. The whistle is invaluable. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, invaluable to the waterfowler that expects more from his dog.

This is not an uncommon scenario. Not wanting to train your dog to run blinds and take hand signals is fine and your prerogative. But don’t even consider that it is not a very valuable skill for a retriever and a handler to have in his tool box.

[Ducktail]

Try www.gun-train.com

They have bloodlines of their dogs posted around the site.

[Greenhead3184]

On the whistle comment Hammers, I thought it would be useless and stupid but since I have been training with a damn good trainer up here I love it. It saves from all the screamin and hollerin most hunters have to do in the swamp.

[PGentry]

I trained my dog (the first one I've ever trained) from the book Waterdog. I believe it's important that the dog knows obedience to an exact T before you start anything else. I don't care for whistles and neither does he. You can make fun of me but my dog is "rock trained" If I mark the bird and he doesn't, I chunk a piece of gravel in the area the bird fell and he finds it from there. Have YOU ever won a national duck calling contest? No? Me either. Why then do we expect our dogs to be better duck hunters than we are?

[Fish]

OH MY GOD!! [img]graemlins/rofl.gif[/img] I ain't even believin what I just read. [img]graemlins/lol.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/rofl.gif[/img] Hammers, how right you are...there is definately more than one way to skin a cat but there are also two sides to this topic in that there are right ways and wrong ways to do certain things. Look at ALL the respected professional trainers and you will find that there are close common threads in their training techniques. They all use whistles, casting, blinds and I don't think I have ever seen one of them use a command for "stay" or "woobie". [img]graemlins/rofl.gif[/img] I take back what I said to scdukcaller, "Do some reading", and direct the statement to you Hammers as you obviously need it far more than he. I assure you, it will go a long way. We all know you think you're right with regards to all topics so you just keep on keepin on dude. Good luck Hammers...in all your hunting and dog training endeavors.

scdukcaller, I'm rollin up to visit a trainer on Monday and I'll ask him what he's got workin for litters and his prices right now. I'll PM you with the his response. Sorry this thread got so convoluted and also that I got sort of smart assed about things but ya know, somehow it always happens when the topic of dogs comes up...or at least when I read the thread! [img]graemlins/rofl.gif[/img]

[scdukcaller]

FishWhistle,
Thanks for the help. That would be great!

[Candor]

Originally posted by PGentry:
I trained my dog (the first one I've ever trained) from the book Waterdog. ... I don't care for whistles and neither does he. You can make fun of me but my dog is "rock trained" If I mark the bird and he doesn't, I chunk a piece of gravel in the area the bird fell and he finds it from there.

PGentry...Wolters, the writer of Water Dog, was a big advocate of whistles. I am not sure where you got that he wasn't [img]graemlins/confused.gif[/img] I don't agree with his training and it is a very outdated book, but he was a strong advocate of whistles. If anything he used whistles for more in his book than most current trainers use them for.

I don't expect my dog to be a better duck hunter than me...just better at retrieving them. I have many birds fall outside of my range to throw a rock and I don't keep a supply of gravel in my boat. That is certainly a way of convincing a dog to swim 25 yards to get a downed bird but won't work for a cripple at 60 yards.

Again...I am not saying everyone need train their dog to this level. Most would be better off just to have a dog that would sit still and be enjoyable in the blind. But yall are misguided in even suggesting that it is not practical to have a dog that can run a blind retrieve.

[Duckaholic]

I talked with Ricky Coward at Shady Grove Kennels in Lexington today. He has a litter at 5 weeks old, will be ready to go next week.