I have often thought of what would be involved in training a lab for waterfowl but thought I would get some info here. How much time would be wrapped up in completely training a puppy from start to finish. Now I dont mean a champion field trial dog but just one that is obediance trained and will retrieve like a good dog does. Also, what is the approx cost of getting a dog already finished from a trainer or haveing a trainer train the dog for me. I would hate to start something like this and find I dont have the time to devote to this. It wouldnt be fair to the dog. Please share any thoughts. Thank you.

You might want to go to www.refugeforums.com and register and go to the refuge and post your question there. You might even go to the Indiana forum site if you want to talk to serious duck hunters here in Indiana. You will probably get some thoughts from guys on here but the other site will give you a much broader viewing of serious duck hunters.

The 'fuge is a pretty good place, but a lot of pointed sticks thrown at times. Retrievertraining.net is pretty good as well.

I'm not a serious duck hunter, but trained my lab to be decent (in spite of me) with not more than an hour or two a week, a few minutes at a time. No blind triples or anything like that, but good enough to mark doubles and such.

Get Evan Grahm's books and 10-minute Retriever is decent. Where are you located? If you can find a training group to work with, you learn from them as your dog learns as well.

Most labs are smarter than their owners anyway!

Here you go! This link should give you plenty of help and answer any questions you may have:

http://www.britishretrievertraining.com/

Good luck!

Fred

I have a lab that is a good waterfowl hunting dog. The key is start early. Read books and watch videos before you get the dog that way you know what to do from the getgo. Richard Walters is the king of dog training. I recommend his books and videos. You will want to spend 10 to 20 minutes per day working with your dog. Preferably two sessions per day 10 minutes each. And do this for about the first 8 months to a year.
If you don't have time Training is usually about $500/month with a trainer.
I trained mine for the first 6 months, but wanted to have his skills sharpened up and sent him to a trainer for two months. He came back like a robot. Took him to North Dakota last month and he retrieved about 150 birds, and never came back empty mouthed. If you want info on who a good trainer is let me know

Richard a. Wolters. And his books are the best you can find for training LABRADORS.

Dan the time involved can be extensive but it can be fun. A retriever will retrieve with his "natural ability" and are always willing to please. It's getting the dog to do what you want when you want that can be difficult and that's usually not the dog's fault but the handler due to inconsistency. I would suggest you read all you can and if you've never had a hunting dog a good book to start with is "Raising a puppy you can live with". It give you some basic understandings of dog psychology. Another thing I would suggest is to join one of the retriever clubs. It will get you around other novices as well as experts and helps keep one motivated.

I have trained all my own dogs(two retrievers and 5 pointing dogs) over the yrs.
I start with obedience in the backyard then take them to an obedience class to further reinforce what they know but around other dogs with more distractions. Once they understand what I want I just continually reinfoce those commands in the field. Their natural ability will get the retrieveing and pointing done.
With retrievers you'll read a lot about handling but with most hunters and hunting situations it isn't necessary. That's for the guys who compete generally and want to take dog training to its highest level.

How much time is involved---depends on how much you want to devote. If you don't have the time or are not willing to make the commitment reread what antlerman posted above.