Labrador Training

Guest Interview – Diana Stevens!

admin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:34:52 +0000

Diana Stevens, from wylanbriar.co.uk, joins us in today’s guest interview. Welcome to our website Diana! Lets kick things off with a few questions..

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today Diana. What is your background and history with breeding/training?

I have been breeding and working Labradors for nearly 16 years, or since 1994. I obtained the ‘Wylanbriar’ kennel name and started showing in 1995 and have worked and shown my Labradors since, breeding 15 litters in those 16 years.

2. How long has your Labrador website been running?

My website has been up and running for the last 3 years.

3. Whats the next stage for you and the site?

I’ve just started a blog on there which i try and update a couple of times a week. I’d like to expland the training section. i feel that as regards GUNDOG training our breed there is rather a ‘one size fits all’ approach to how young dogs and newcomers are started. This may well not suit the showbred labrador and so immediately puts them at a disadvantage and renforces the stereotype that ’showbred labradors can’t work’. STARTED differently to the fatsre more driven working bred Labradors, the showbred cousins can be VERY useful companions in most cases. So this is an area I’d like to expand on hugely on my site.

4. Your website has a load of information and helpful tips, but you still must get asked for help via email..whats the most common question?

Without a DOUBT it is “…. I’ve heard chocolate Labradors are all mad/untrainable/stupid/inbred/unhealthy/aggressive etc etc…. ARE they? ” Where upon after my head slumps onto my keyboard for a few seconds I direct them to the article I wrote a couple of years ago on my website, which is both realistic (because there are labradors in EVERY colour that are all or some of the above!) and hopefully comforting

5. ..and whats the strangest/funniest?

I had a lady who had been reading about feeding raw chicken wings to her dogs (the BARF method of feeding) and she asked me, entirely seriously, if she started doing this wouldn’t her gundog immediately eat the birds he had happily retrieved for years, on her shoot?!!!! I also got an enquiry through for a place on a OXYGEN testing clinic for their dog (The test is actually called an OPTIGEN test…) I loved that!

6. If you could give someone three ‘must checks’ when looking at a new labrador, what would they be?

1) Both parents are hip scored and holding a CURRENT (dated in the last 12 months) eye certificate and that you can SEE these documents with no shoddy or silly excuses from the breeder. This is the bare minimum they should do to at the very least TRY and provide YOU with a healthy pet puppy.

2) The puppies are happy to be touched and held, charging at you to play, or at least enjoying you being there, climbing all over you and biting at your shoes and clothes (any breeder who will not allow you to touch the puppies or climb in and sit down with them is to be avoided – providing the puppies are over 3 or 4 weeks old).

3) See mum. Interact with mum. If you would like to take mum home (or a male version of her if you want a boy!) then you are more than half way there! Nervous, wary, defensive mum…. ditto the future puppy to a greater extent. Any breeder who does not let you see or interact with mum should always be avoided.

7. Whats you favourite colour labrador?

(Whispers) Chocolate. Although I own all three colours.

8. Silver labs – fashion item or real labrador?

Fashion item. I would cheerfully ban the word ‘chocolate’ to describe, what are, BROWN labradors. The word ‘chocolate’ conjours up a fluffy ‘Milk Tray’ image which is misleading and far too sugar and spice. Ditto ‘SILVER’ Labradors. This is a marketing image portrayed to try and distract from the fact these are simply mismarked light chocolate labradors, mostly with a decent sludge of Weimamara in there a generation or two ago. They are grey. But if they were marketed as ‘Grey’ Labradors it wouldn’t sound HALF as appealling and ’special’. Don’t be fooled and don’t be ripped off.

Thanks for the interview today Diana!

Buying Your New Labrador Puppy

admin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:15:24 +0000

Where can I get real help and advice on the million and one issues I have regarding puppy care, crating, feeding, health, exercise, getting into gundog work, showing or a million and one other topics?

One of the main problems when purchasing a puppy is wishing to create a good impression with the breeder, BUT equally wanting to seem knowledgeable AND ensure that this breeder ticks all the right boxes towards buying a well bred, potentially healthy puppy.

My primary advice would be to ask the following questions on the telephone or by email. Visiting a litter will tug at the heartstrings, and then, even if the answers are not what you were wishing to hear, your heart may over rule your head and you purchase a puppy anyway!

So many times we hear people saying they KNOW they shouldn’t be buying, but they got there, and the pups looked basically healthy, and the breeder seemed nice….and so…. they went for it knowing they should be walking away… DON’T BE THAT PERSON – YOU, YOUR FAMILY AND YOUR PUPPY DESERVE BETTER!

Lets lay out the first contact BASIC Questions so you can save that heartache, possible wasted desposits and huge embarassment:

Absolutely essential:

1) Are BOTH parents hip scored? What are the scores for each? Will I be able to see copies of BOTH parents hip score certificates? (Note here that saying a dog is hip scored is not good enough, they should both KNOW the result and be able to prove it by showing you the certificates. Any good stud dog owner will give a bitch owner copies of HIS certificates to show their puppy buyers, there should be no weak excuses).

2) Do they BOTH hold current (dated in the last 12 months) CLEAR eye certificates under the BVA/KC eye testing scheme? (Ditto above as regards SEEING proof of this)

3) Does the breeder own mum and can she be seen? (You need to judge if she is the sort of dog you would like to own – therefore you must see her and like what you see of her).

4) Have the puppies been Kennel Club registered? (If they are not the chances are the parents are NOT health tested which is extremely shoddy on the part of the breeder.)

5) Were the puppies wormed at 2, 4 and 6 weeks of age (and 8 weeks if that is relevent age wise)?

6) Does the breeder give you a diet sheet, copies of the documents for the sire and dam and a basic puppy pack when you pick your puppy up?

7) Were the puppies born and raised in the house to a certain age OR well socialised if raised outside, with plenty of human contact and access to sounds and smells of a day to day household?

Have mum and dad been elbow scored? What is the result? Can you see the certificates?

9) Have mum and dad been Optigen tested? can you see the certificate?

10) Are they fed on an easy to obtain food?

11) Do they fall between about £550 and £700 in price? (If not you have to ask yourself what is missing as they are too cheap or WHY they are overcharging – adjust that to where you live in the country – London may be MORE expensive, Scotland may be cheaper!).

12) Will the registration documents be ready to take when you leave with your puppy? (Some breeders SAY they will register the pups and send the documents onto you, and you hand over the money for a registered puppy, but the documents never materialise – make sure you LEAVE with them at 8 weeks of age and at earlier visits gently mention this).

These questions can be expected by any reputable breeder and can be phased to come out in pleasant conversation, not necessarily firing them like a firing squad, you will save yourself a lot of trouble later. They are the basic essentials…. and will be found in many hundreds of labrador litters a year so don’t think you are narrowing your options by ruling out breeders who only do half the job.

Good luck!

Special thanks to Diana Stevens from Wynlanbriar Labradors for putting together this article. Head over to their website for more advice, training and tips on Labradors.

I Want A Pet Labrador Puppy!

admin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:09:23 +0000

I ‘only’ want a pet puppy. Surely the sort of breeder who uses health schemes and competes with their dogs won’t be interested in selling to me?

Breeders who show or work their dogs still always expect the vast majority of their puppies to go into pet homes. Just because they are experienced, regular competitors, doesn’t mean they won’t sell to pet homes. There is no NEED to buy from novice breeders, mating pet dogs for no good reason because you ‘only want a pet’. Prices will be almost exactly the same too for pet puppies from whatever source. So make sure your source is a quality one!

Special thanks to Diana Stevens from Wynlanbriar Labradors for putting together this article. Head over to their website for more advice, training and tips on Labradors.

Top Tips To Find a GOOD Labrador

admin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:06:50 +0000

I have seen all sorts of types of Labradors out there – some big heavy ones with large heads, some smaller, finer ones. Are they ALL pedigree Labradors and is there any difference between their temperaments?

The Labrador is the most numerous dog in the UK. Its not suprising therefore that they do come in all shapes and sizes. However as a general guide:

Show line and Field/Working line Labradors

These are not necessarily dogs who are shown or worked themselves, BUT have a pedigree full of dogs who come from either show or working lines. The show line labrador tends to be a little shorter in leg, but broader in body and head than the field/working type dogs. Commonly on a showline pedigree you will see dogs with SH CH (Show Champion) before their pedigree name. On a working or field trial pedigree you will see several with FTW (Field Trial Winner) or FT CH (Field Trial Champion).

80 years ago or more ‘the Labrador’ was all one dog. One type. A moderate middleweight hunter dog brought over from the fishing waters of Newfoundland to be shooting companions for the UK gentry. The popularity of the amiable, biddable breed rose quickly and with the advent of more dogs being kept as domestic pets, started to slowly split into several types, with the working dogs actually being bred with a lighter and lighter frame to enable maximum speed, style and endurance, and the show and pet dog often being bred heavier, with more thought given to looks and ’show ring presence’ than the origins of the breed as a medium sized dog with no exaggerations.

No one line or type is more prone to health problems than another. The logic that a lighter frame of Labrador must be healthier does not stand up in practice, especially as many of the working line breeders have been slow to start to use the health schemes (above) and so have not been making informed decisions healthwise when mating dogs for as long as many of the show lines have been. Matings between pet dogs are numerous, and of course usually are undertaken for no other reason that the Sire and Dam of the litter lived nearby, or possibly both with the breeder, so therefore may be a mix of any lines, show, working or anything inbetween!

Temperament is both inherited from its parents and developed by the way the dog is socialised and raised. It is important to see at least the mother of the litter to check her temperament is friendly, confident and you would be pleased to end up with a dog similar to her in looks and personality. If you would not, walk away. Puppies from show lines, pet lines and working lines can all be bold and outgoing, can all be timid and nervous and can all be smart and quick to learn or a little less clever! Generally the nature of field trial and working lines means that they have been bred for many generations to work hard all day and have the capacity to learn. These may, therefore, be a more active dog on the whole than your average show line bred dog, but many show bred lines are very intelligent and active without being overly demanding in their desire to be on the go quite so much.

In the end its the type that pleases your eye that you must ‘go for’.

Special thanks to Diana Stevens from Wynlanbriar Labradors for putting together this article. Head over to their website for more advice, training and tips on Labradors.

What to Look For With Labrador Puppy Health Certificates

admin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:03:54 +0000

‘I’ve heard and seen puppy adverts mentioning health certificates and wondered what this meant and why it is necessary?’

This is a very misunderstood area. Alongside temperament, the health of your Labrador throughout its life is of primary importance to you as pet owners. Three of the most frequent problems that affect the Labrador are Hip Displacia, Elbow Displacia and GPRA (a problem with the eyes that causes blindness, often by three or four years of age).

The eye problem is ENTIRELY genetic (so passed through the genes from the puppies parents to it and its littermates).
The Hip and Elbow problems have a very strong genetic influence, but can be aggrevated by overexercising a young puppy, falls, injuries and general roughhousing whilst the dogs joints are still growing.

Therefore, it is very very important that only dogs free from these problems themselves are bred from to give the puppies produced the very best chance of being free themselves of these painful and traumatic problems.

The common misconception is that only competition kennels use the health schemes or that they are not for breeders who ‘only produce pets’. The schemes are not expensive to put breeding dogs through, and, remember, every dog bred from is a ‘breeding dog’, NOT just those belonging to people who show or work their dogs. To NOT health test the parents before breeding for these conditions is selling both puppy buyers and the puppies they produce short as they are playing Russian Roulette by breeding ‘blind’.

To briefly explain the schemes:

Hip Scoring.
At around a year of age, when the dogs skeleton has fully grown, an xray is taken of the dogs pelvis area. This xray is then sent from the vet to the BVA (British Vet Association). They will score this xray with each hip of the two hips scoring between 0 (lowest) and 53 (highest). So if both hips are scored the total that dog achieves will be between a TOTAL of 0 and 106 (2 x 53).
Currently the breed average for a total of both hips sits at around 16. So dogs around or under this score have average or better than average hips to give a guide. The score can also be shown sometimes as two numbers, left hip/right hip – so, something like 5/4 (total of 9 – good) or maybe 33/21 (total of 54 – poor).

To recap, it is the PARENTS of the litter who are scored and not the puppies. This cannot be undertaken until a year of age as a minimum but can be done at any age after this. Only dogs to be bred from are usually hip scored, there is no need to score pet puppies not to be bred from. The information is FOR breeder and puppy buyers to decide if the dog is suitable to be bred from. Hip scoring is done once in a dogs life only and his score remains with him for the rest of his life. When buying a puppy, you should insist on seeing the official BVA/KC certificate with the dogs score on. NEVER just rely on verbal assurances that the parents are scored without seeing the proof. Hip scoring has been undertaken now for around 35 years and so the scheme is well known and well used. A breeder shows everything you need to know about them, even if a nice person with basically healthy looking dogs, if they do not use the health schemes.

Eye Test Certificate.
This is possibly even more essential for buyers of puppies to ensure they buy only from litters where both parents have been eye tested. GPRA is 100% genetic and so the status of the parents eyes entirely affects the puppies eyes for the future. This test is not undertaken at a regular vet but by a specialist. There are many many clinics and testing sessions around the country OR you can book a private visit to one of the dozens of test specialists. An eye test will be undertaken and a simple certificate given afterwards showing if the dog was affected or unaffected by the problems being examined for. This eye certificate should be renewed every 12 months and so, when puppies are produced, the certificate should be valid. they last only 12 months, like a Car M.O.T. so even if the breeder can show a certificate, firstly make sure the ‘unaffected’ box is ticked (not the ‘affected’) and secondly make sure it is dated within the last 12 months.

If it is not, chances are the dog was retested and failed OR the owner didn’t bother testing again. The trauma of a young pet dog going blind is so great that the £35 or so an eye test certificate costs a breeder is a SMALL price to pay to check their eyes are not affected before a mating is undertaken.

Special thanks to Diana Stevens from Wynlanbriar Labradors for putting together this article. Head over to their website for more advice, training and tips on Labradors.

Featured Interview – Dog Trainer Chris Smith

admin — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:37:07 +0000

Many of us are interested in doing our own labrador training, but without the right books, magazines and websites it can be difficult to know where to start. Today we are interviewing Chris Smith, an avid dog lover and trainer who runs the website Dog Obedience Training Review. The site is packed with information and content for all types of dog lovers and trainers – not just labradors!

Hi Chris, thanks for taking the time to talk to us today. Lets start with your site – How long have you been running your current dog training website?

Hello! I started my website about 3 and a half years ago now, although it feels like a lot longer than that!

What motivated you to setup the website?

My motivation for setting up the website was to help people train their dogs in a positive, non violent and effective manner. Since then the site has grown to include dog health care information, grooming tips and nutrition advice. Basically my goal is to cover everything a dog owner needs to successfully raise, train and care for their dogs.

Its packed with information and a great resource. For any new dog owners, what would you say is the most important area to focus on?

One of the most important and often overlooked subjects is puppy socialization. I cannot stress enough just how crucial the puppy socialization period is for all dogs. Unfortunately dogs require much more than simply love and affection from their owners in order to be well balanced, healthy and happy dogs. This is where many many dog owners let themselves, and their dogs down.

You must be in touch with lots of dog owners through your website, what is the most common question or problem you get?

Yes I receive about 100 questions every day from dog owners around the world. The most prominent questions are how to solve problems such as excessive barking, puppy biting, pulling on the leash and general destructive behavior. Most of these issues stem back to the relationship shared between the owner and the dog.

Whats next for Chris and your dog training website?

Hopefully my site will continue to grow and gain more followers each and every day. I have over 150 pages of content at the moment and plan to increase this every month. Another area I am considering is to allow my visitors to submit there own content to the site. My goal for the site is for it to be considered and recognized as the authority on responsible dog ownership online.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today Chris!

Start Training your Labrador

admin — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:52:26 +0000

Many have asked when is the best time to train your labrador. The simple answer is, NOW!

You may be surprised to hear, many owners have asked if certain weather conditions and seasons are more suited to training. For the dog it makes no difference what so ever!

If you have a labrador puppy, then you must make training a priority right now. Getting the basics covered in the early stages of the dogs life will make the training process much easier and rewarding for you and the dog in the long term. With a puppy, you will find teaching his name the first and foremost skill for him to learn, everything else branches from this fundamental skill.

Most training questions are aimed at new dog owners, and normally young puppies. But what about older dogs? Is the cliche saying really true..? It depends on the dog, but for a labrador, an old dog can learn new tricks! Of course, the older the dog gets the harder it does become, which is why its vital you train them young to save you from hours of frustration in the future. If you don’t have this luxury, then good on you for having a go at getting him trained!

It is very important you make any training with your older dog fun, and most importantly rewarding. A good step is to join a local dog training class, taking an online lesson/ebook and asking family and friends for assistance.

Your dog will love all the new attention and activities your are getting involved with together, and this is when you will start to see the best rewards and character come out from your dog. Regardless of how much he learns, or what he can do after an session of training you can be assured your bond with each other will get stronger and stronger.

Stick at it, and don’t give up. And remember, start training your labrador today.

Message from Sherry at Blypark Gundogs

admin — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:19:30 +0000

“I looked at your web site. I wonder if you could enlighten me? I see you advertise ‘Golden‘ and ‘Silver Labs‘. Are they a new colour? I cannot find any reference to them in the KC breed standard or am I out of touch? ”
Sherry
Blypark Gundogs

Well Sherry, thank you for your message. I’m not sure if you actually read the content on our website, as we address these issues in full on each page! We are well aware of the issues about Yellow vs Golden, and how many breeders and owners are very negative toward the beautiful silver labs.. But that’s general knowledge! Do give it a read over and let us know what you think. We discuss the origins of the breed, the colors and the controversy surrounding these colors.

New website for Labrador Training!

admin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:32:14 +0000

Welcome to our new labrador training resource!

We have been working hard producing all the new copy for the website pages, so let us know if you find it useful. Combined we have over 30 years of dog training experience behind us, so thought what better than to make a website about it!

Do let us know if you find it helpful, we would love to hear from you.