Arlette of Sunshine Kennel
Arlette was the first puppy selected from our first litter and it was no surprise, she was a beautiful puppy with a great personality. She inherited her father’s blocky head and her mother’s thick coat. Other than her solid liver head, she has no large marking on her coat. However, she had lots of ticking and developed more ticking as she matured. She is a great companion and we are very pleased with her disposition. She is calm in the house and handles well in the field. She is also very intelligent and learns very quickly. Just as we were making plans to have her delivered to her new home we had an opportunity to keep Arlette and start her training for her new owner.
We welcomed the opportunity to keep Arlette temporarily and start her training. Nine eight-week-old pups are a handful, but it’s still hard to see them all go to their new homes. It was a good feeling to know that we would have one around for awhile. We also kept a detailed record of the training of Ronny and Addie and we were anxious to start training a new pup.
We raised Arlette in our home with our other dogs. Our goal was to prepare her for the NAVHDA Natural Ability in the summer of 2008 and we kept a log of her progress. The following is a log of her training and NAVHDA testing which took place from December 2007 through June 2008.
Training Log
December: Arlette’s training is off to a great start. Our summer was busy with the whelping of Litter A and this fall we have been busy enjoying the many hunting opportunities available in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Most of our time has been spent introducing and practicing commands that we will get more serious with this spring. We have not put much pressure on her at this point. She is probably ready for more advanced work, but the winters in Wisconsin limit the time you can spend training a puppy outside. It works best for us to train during the spring and summer to prepare for NAVHDA testing and hunting later in the year.
At this point we have introducing the following commands to Arlette: come, kennel, whoa and fetch. We also try to get her in the field as much as possible. She is very bold and enjoys her time in the field very much. She has not had a lot of bird contact so far but she will get plenty of that this spring. We hope at that point we will have developed a good level of control, and her pointing instinct will be developed to the point where she will start pointing naturally or with very little encouragement. She has been given many opportunities to swim so far but she would only enter the water up to her belly before it became too cold and we had to stop for the year. Swimming is another skill we will continue to work on in the spring.
By the end of December Arlette had no trouble keeping up with the larger dogs and she joined us for the last few hunts of the season. We gradually introduced the pups to loud noises almost from the day they were born. It was a simple process to introduce the cap pistol, then the starter pistol and finally the shotgun and she was ready to shoot over. She did not find any birds herself on our hunts but she covered a lot of ground, handled nicely and we laid the groundwork for independent work later this spring.
