formal obedience

[Commando]

So me and my lab who is 6 1/2 months old have been working on formal obedience now for about a month. When or how do you know when you have completed the formal ob training? He will sit, here, and heel every time he is told. I am waiting on his last few teeth to come in before I start the hold training. So how do you know when he is ready to move on from formal on besides waiting for his teeth to come in?

[vandeman17]

I would say he is ready now to start basic retrieval training while continuing to reinforce good habits of the original training. It will be a work in progress for a while, actually for the majority of their lives. Always something to work on. Good luck, have fun and be patient. 

[REHJWA]

I treat it like building anything, once you have a solid foundation you can build on it, but always go back over the basics.
He will tell you when your ready to move on... once they get what you've been working on they will try you becasue their bored.
I still have my Labs, even a teenage lab, heel before I release her to eat. And sometimes I even have her heel halfway into a meal.
However, when I do start anything new I make it fun and then start to refine it from there.
Enjoy it...it's a learning process for us too.

[Commando]

Thanks guys. That is pretty much what I was thinking but was not a hundred percent sure sonic thought I'd ask. Looks like I'll wait for all his teeth to finish coming in then move onto hold and force fetch with still working on ob until he is ready