Took him hunting this evening for the first time at just over 5 months old and I was completly blown away. Only shot one bird and when It hit the water it wasn't completely dead yet and he had a solid mark on it and was crying his head off wanting to bail out there. Finally it quit moving and I sent him but he lost it in the decoys when it quit moving so I had to walk him out to about 10 yards from it and sent him on "back" and he went strait to it and brought it all the way back to the blnd and held it till I got back. Couldn't have been a more proud moment when I saw him sitting in the blind with a bird in his mouth just waiting on me

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Congratulations man. You will never forget that. There is nothing quite like watching your dog make his/her first retrieve. Biggest thing you can do is make everything fun for him because If it's fun for him, it's fun for you. Quit painting his face.... Please... But other than that congrats on your new hunting buddy and be sure to post updates on him!

Thanks man. I took him out with me not concerned about killing anything I mainly took him out to let him swim through the decoys and retrieve bumpers in the decoys because he's only ever done it in the yard. Figured it was a good opportunity to put water in the mix now.

And what's wrong with paint? his yellow face sticks out just as bad as any persons does lol only difference is im not putting face paint on when I can just use a mask

Good job dude

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No need to paint because the ducks won't flare off him. Ducks will come right on with a yellow dog in the decoys. Their eyes are able to distinguish "not human movement" from "human movement" and they generally could care less about a dog. They'll just typically try to light 15 yards or more away.

Gotcha. Guess I didn't realize that, all I saw was his yellow face sticking through the green bushes when I was out throwing decoys.

You don't necessarily want him drawing duck eyeballs to you, but if you're still/well concealed, it won't matter, and what you've put on him won't change anything if he moves. Color is far less important to ducks than shapes and movement when they're scoping a place to land.

Nice! He reminds me of a precocious YLM that I had, who became a Field Champoin (a noisy one!).
A word of warning on noise: if you don't want a noisy retriever, don't ever reward it, especially with a warm bird. If he whines to be sent, and then you send him, he'll become intolerable in short order. Practice in the yard: thrown a dummy, if he whines, or worse, barks, make him stay steady and quiet while you go get the dummy. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. When you throw one, and he is steady and quiet, send him for what it is he really wants. Transfer this yard work to the duck blind.

Normally he sits pretty quiet and steady but I think the excitement got to him. I can throw dummy in the yard all the time and he sits steady and doesn't cry and every now and then I'll make him sit while I go get it just to check his steadyness. But he's been running through the decoys at home picking up bumpers and all that fun stuff and he loves to swim and this was the first time we put everything together for him, and add a floping around bird in the decoys didn't help anything. That is something I'll definitely keep in mind though and work on, appreciate it.