I was duck hunting with a friend of mine this past December. He brought along a young lab that he trained on his own because he wanted to give it some experience on the water. His lab, cypher, was pretty good at retrieving, however, he wanted to retrieve more than just the ducks. He had a bad habit of also wanting to bring in the decoys. This actually a common problem with dogs that are trained by someone that is not a professional, but is a problem that can be easily avoided and even corrected.





It is always best to prevent bad habits than it is to correct them, so I’ll explain the proper procedures of early training. To correct this problem just use the same methods explained here. However, it will take a little more patience on your part and a bit longer to accomplish.


Training your dog to ignore decoys should never be attempted while the decoys are setting on the water. Always do this in your yard, or a field where you are able to walk the dog easily on a leash. Start out by placing several decoys scattered on the ground upright. When you have your decoys set, walk your dog through the decoys. If he wants to pick one up, firmly tell him no. Don’t even let him sniff at the decoys. We want him to learn to just ignore them completely. Continue to do this daily for a few days while moving the decoys closer together each time you set them up. Then start skipping days to see how well he remembers that the decoys are to be left alone.


After just a few days of this your dog will understand and it is now time to take it to the next level. Set your decoys with a good amount of space between them at first. Now throw out your training dummy with some duck scent on it and have your dog fetch it. We want to use a good training scent because we don’t want the dog to get confused when he is out in the middle of the decoys. He may appear a little shy at first, but as any good hunting dog will, he will happily retrieve the dummy. If he starts to look at any of the decoys, make sure to give him a firm no, but if he retrieves the dummy without touching any of the decoys make sure to give him all of the praise that you can. Continue to throw the training dummy out amongst the decoys until you are sure that he understand. Then start moving the decoys closer together until it gets difficult for him to fetch it without touching one of them. If he retrieves the dummy while it is touching a decoy, but leaves the decoy itself alone, you know he’s ready for the next step.


Now it’s time to practice this on water. Set up your decoys as you would if you were hunting. Try to make it as realistic as possible. Use your blind, or boat if you use one. Bring along your calls to give distractions. However, make sure that you don’t bring your gun if it’s not duck season. I don’t think the game warden would believe you are just training.


Once you are all set up, make some calls and then throw your training dummy out into the water just like you did on dry land. Continue this until you are comfortable that your dog is ready.


So what happened to Cypher? Well he was through hunting for the season and somehow I got selected to spend some afternoons with him on my lease this summer.

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