About to buy a lab and start trying to train it for next season.. I have no idea at all what I'm doing so yea.. Anyways, I'm probably going to put the pup through a 6 week basic obedience training program to help house break him/her in order to get the puppy started, and do the actual duck dog portion myself. Does anyone know of any GOOD DVD/video series that tell you what steps to take to train the dog?

waterdog.. also "the wildrose way" . or maybe its called gentleman's gun dog. its one or the other. only used videos when was first getting into it years ago.. i prefer books

Duck Dog Basics by Chris Akin

Sound Beginings retriever training with Jackie Mertens is a great starter video. It's a little dated and boring, but the information given and program are supper easy to follow and it works! I would recommend it to anyone. I bought my copy used on Amazon for 7$ and it was by far the best 7$ I spent on training equipment.

Fowl Dawgs
http://www.gundogsupply.com/fowl-dawgs-dvd-series.html

Mike Mathiot (simple)
http://www.gundogsupply.com/vid-sw044.html

Water Dog, Game Dog (wolters)

I take from each what makes sense.

I think Bill Hillman has the best puppy and young dog programs. His method is low pressure and high drive. It's easy for an inexperienced trainer to follow. You end up with a very steady dog without diminishing it's drive.

http://www.hawkeyemedia.net/

After that I like Even Graham's Smartwork for Retrievers. Again very easy for inexperienced trainers to follow.

Buck

Duck dog basics has been just about the best series of videos I have used. I started out with water dog and it left a good bit of "holes" in the process and didnt show hoe to address problems that evolve. I've also heard fowl dawgs is great but I dont have much personal experience with it.

Glad I found this thread. I been considering picking up some training dvds myself. I didnt spend enough time with my dog last summer before season (2 jobs and a pt time student ) which led to alot of trips this past season without her.I was very disappointed in myself to be honest. She's had a decent start but needs to kind of "put it all together" I guess you could say. Maybe these will help get me and the dog heading in the right direction.

Another thing that will help tremendously is to pal up with a pro or find a training group. They are always looking for more folks to help and you will get some valuable knowledge. Learning how to handle and train a dog is as much of a factor as the dog training . Good luck!

I'm a big fan of smartworks. Easy to follow and you'll see the results.