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For those of you that
have enjoyed following Lottie’s Diary, I thought it
might be interesting for you to compare her training
with that of a more popular (and generally
considered more 'trainable'), breed of gundog. Tess
is a Labrador Retriever, she was born on 26th
September 2007. This is Tess’s story
About Tess
Tess is now just over
three months old. I bred her myself from my own
bitch Bella who has a dash of show blood in her
mostly Field Trial pedigree. Bella is a small, very
lively fast retriever, very biddable, whilst not
too sensitive, and easy to train.
For those of you who
like pedigrees, Tess’s father is a son of FTCH
Flashmount Socrates out of a Willowyck bitch by FTCH
Tasco Dancing Brave. Tess’s mother has a fairly
modest pedigree including a few names such as FTCH
Aughacasla Sam and some Millbuies FT dogs. I
chose Tess’s father for his pedigree, great
temperament, working ability, good size and gorgeous
dark red colour. He is also Optigen clear, so
although statistically Tess could be a carrier, she
can never be affected by the type of PRA
screened for under Optigen testing. This is
nice to know, as FTCH Aughacasla Sam is widely
considered to have been a carrier. You can
read more about Optigen testing here.
Tess is currently being
raised indoors, the rest of my dogs being
kennelled. She has not had an ‘accident’ in the
house since her littermates left at eight weeks old.
I should point out that this is not normal, most
pups take many weeks to house train. For us this is
definitely a record! Being born here Tess was very
familiar from the beginning with her designated
‘toilet’ area outside, and has simply never chosen
to go elsewhere. I let her out every two hours or
less during the day, more often if she goes to the
door, and she sleeps eight hours at night (10:30 –
6:30 ) in her crate.
Tess is a very quiet,
‘chilled’ puppy so far, but this is not fooling me.
Bella was the same at her age and is a real little
rocket now. Aspects of Tess’s own unique character
are now beginning to take shape. She learns to
interpret our ‘patterns’ of behaviour very quickly
and for a short while took to hiding when she knew
she was going to be crated.
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