New addition to family. Now what?

[jechicdr]

My wife and I have talked about a hunting dog but never made the plunge.  Well, for my birthday this year, my wife bought me "Bob".  He's a German wirehaired pointer.  I received some text pages through the day from my wife, not knowing what to do with all the "wires"  I was thinking she was putting something electronic together and then was thinking, why the heck is she taking it out of the box .  When I got home she had the kennel wrapped in wrapping paper.  I recognized the shape as our kennel for the other dog, but still did not get a clue.  After a while he started whining, but I still did not make the connection until my wife told me I should hurry up and let him out.

He was 4 months old (now 5 months old) and had already been hunting with his parents and been shot over prior to me getting.  He fetches up a storm, comes most of the time, sits, and stays most of the time.  Took him for a walk with our other dog (a border collie who also fetches, but doesn't really hunt) and came up on some quail that with some coaxing (had to get Bob downwind of them and away from the other dog) he held a pretty solid point.  He was "birdy" just prior to seeing the couple of quail flush a short distance off the walking trail (flushed by me, the wife, and two little girls).

I've read the Kennel Club Book (not that helpful) and "Gun Dog" by Richard A. Wolters. Also looked at some nice training videos http://www.youtube.com/user/willowcreekkennels.  I live in Spokane and couple people have recommended some local trainers.  Dunfur kennels and Double Barrel Ranch.  I'm leaning toward the Double Barrel Ranch.

So, my question is this...how much hunting (and when can I "hunt"/train with him during the off season on public land), basic training, and professional training should I do now?  How good at the basic commands (and which ones) does he need to do well before I would get the most out of the professional training?

The training videos above, use combination of positive reinforcement and a negative "vibration" for training.  I like the idea of vibration instead of shocks and will probably also invest at some point in DT 1820 H2O (http://www.cabelas.com/product/DT-Systems-H20-1820-Dog-Training-System/720094.uts).

[jrebel]

Fantastic looking dog.  I too have a new gwp and would love to follow this thread.  I have had our dog out 4 times already and she is only 14 weeks.  I am taking her out tomorrow as a matter of fact.  She does really well and everthing I have read said these dogs can be trained to do multiple disciplines.  Durring the off season I plan on continued training with bird wings and training aids.  I am also training her to find antlers....we will se how that works. 

John

[jechicdr]

Yeah, retrieving a duck may be in the future as well as upland.  My duck decoys have not been out of the closet for about 15 years.

[Sportfury]

That is one great looking ugly dog! Love the GWP's! You might want to look into a club like the North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association NAVHDA. They have do a lot of tests with their dogs and it is a lot of real world type stuff.

[BULLBLASTER]

i really reccomend Ron at Double Barrrel. he does training sessions and always told me that he trains the owner as much as the dog. his dogs are great and they always like to help with training the other dogs. Ron trained my gsp, i just wish i could hunt him as much as he wants to.