# Miss Lucy from show dog to Senior Hunter?



## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

Anney suggested I start a thread on training a show puppy all the way to a SH title. So I hope my thread helps out people that are like me, totally new to field work and totally new to show dogs. I'm going to lay it all out here and show the whole thing and hope maybe I'll inspire someone else to either get into field or show or both.

I've had goldens for about 16 years. I have 3 goldens currently. Lucy is my youngest. Here's her pedigree: Pedigree: Wiseman Wildfire Grayling Fish On JH RN CGC When I purchased Lucy at 8 weeks, I was looking for a pet. I live in Alaska and our dogs float rivers, camp, fly in our plane, fish, run with our mountain bikes, go hiking, and go to work with us every day. I wanted a dog that could do everything. But I was not involved in dog sports. I had taken the occasional obedience class with prior goldens, but nothing in particular on the agenda. I asked Lucy's breeder to pick a puppy for us since she would know the personality of her pups the best. I only asked for the highest energy, wildest pup from the litter. That was all I had planned. I knew that she did not have any field breeding. You can see in Lucy's pedigree there is one SH in 5 generations. I think I went back 6 or 7 generations to find a dog that placed in a field trial. So definitely not a field breeding! Plenty of dogs though in the show dog hall of fame. And some dogs that won the GRCA national BOB.

Lucy went right to work with us at our construction company. She of course loved going to work every day and getting out on the trails. One day when she was about 12 weeks old, one of our carpenters brought a goose wing to work for Lucy. Lucy was so excited she tore that wing out of Jeff's hands, ran across the room and started shredding it and ate what she could! So that's when we decided that hey maybe she should be a bird dog. DH and I don't normally hunt birds. DH grew up hunting pheasants and only the occasional duck using mutts from the ranch he grew up on in Idaho. But we didn't know how to train a real bird dog. So I called Lucy's breeder, who directed me to G the field chair of the local golden retriever club. G invited me over and I brought with me another golden owner of a puppy from Lucy's litter. The other owner was a bird hunter and was interested in seeing how our girls would do. G brought out a frozen pigeon. After we pried the pigeons out of our dogs mouths, the other owner and I decided that we'd like to bird train our puppies together. So began our journey, Lucy and I.

The photo below is Lucy and her sister Daisy on their first day of retrieving a frozen pigeon. You can see they are ready to get after that pigeon again and don't want to sit still.


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## gdgli (Aug 24, 2011)

Nice idea for a thread Stacey and Anney.


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## Sweet Girl (Jun 10, 2010)

I am definitely going to follow your thread. I am currently hunt training my first pup - we are just at the Started/JH level. We started when Shala was a year old, so I am still working on undoing bad habits! 

Good luck!


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

When G offered to help us train up our pups, we decided to form a "class". I gathered up some other pups from the litter and some other friends with puppy goldens. G said she would handle field stuff and put us in touch with B to help us with obedience class.

This is where my first problem began. I didn't have someone sit down and say this is how a program is set up for field training. You have yard work (obedience) over here and field work (retrieving) over there. I didn't understand what needed to be accomplished in each area. Instead it was mostly fun and games with some obedience thrown in. So Saturdays we would meet at the frozen marsh and let our puppies case thrown ducks. On a week night we would work on obedience in an arena. It was all very fun.

Until Lucy developed a very frustrating problem. She would not pick up anything but a duck. She would NOT pick up anything else. Not sticks, balls, bumpers, Frisbees, etc. Just ducks or pigeons. So as spring approached it was evident that something needed to change. G suggested force fetch training as a way to get Lucy retrieving anything. By then I knew a little bit about force fetch and field work, but not much. I knew that if we were going to go on in field work, Lucy had to go through force fetch. 

So one day G said let's get started on force fetch. She had me work with her and Lucy for about 20 minutes. G became aware pretty quickly I had no idea how to do force fetch and I really shouldn't be doing it. So my participation became watcher and that was it. So for 2 months in the summer of 2013 I went to G's house 4 or 5 times a week for a force fetch session.

The photo is Lucy at 8 months dragging a heavy duck back to the line.


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

While all that field work was going on, people kept telling me that Lucy was really pretty and should be a show dog. I had never owned a show dog before, I had no idea what it took and I certainly didn't know if Lucy had it. So I asked G. She happens to be unusual. She has had both field trial dogs and show dogs. She's a field trial judge and a conformation judge. G said yes, I should show her. So I asked Lucy's breeder and she looked her over and yes I could show her. So I took a deep breath and jumped into the show arena.

I decided against all advice, and show Lucy myself. I also decided to learn how to groom her myself too. If I can run a construction company, heck I should be able to groom and show my own dog right?

So when Lucy was 9 months old, I entered her in her first show. March 2013. We were the only bitch in the 9-12month class. So we won that class both days. Which was really fun. I got hooked. I didn't have a lot of help. I bathed Lucy at the dog wash and blew out her coat there. Then I trimmed her on the floor at home with scissors. No table, no commercial blower, and no professional thinners or shears. It wasn't perfect. I went to show and go classes with Lucy. But all in all the first shows were fun and I was completely clueless.

But I had it in my head that a dog should do both field work and run around a show ring. It never occurred to me that it would be a difficult path.


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## cubbysan (Mar 13, 2007)

Two of my goldens today were being followed by five day ducklings in my living room. I don't think we could ever have them do any field work.


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

I think dogs are situational. I wouldn't tempt them once I began field training. Some dogs are more predators than others. Lucy is in that category. I was taking birds away from her when she was only 9 weeks old out in the back yard that she had found stunned when they hit our windows. I've never had a golden that was so into birds as Lucy.


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