Tips for the new Brittany owner - What to do with your new dog!

Puppies

What your new dog will need will depend on how old it is when it leaves Gilmore Brittanys. We start worming at 4 weeks of age and do so every 2 weeks until about 12 weeks of age then switching over to once a month. We vaccinate at 6 and 8 weeks of age. Vaccinating is very easy to do and most feed stores sell all types of vaccinates. We Vaccinate for Rabies at 4 months of age.

Play with your new puppy as much as possible. Take it for a car ride so it is used to going for a car ride before you take him hunting in the fall. Walk in the tall grass or down to a creek and get them used to water. Spend time with your new puppy calling his name and petting him when he comes to you. Don’t put your new puppy on a chain and forget working with him until hunting season is here.

If you use a pheasant wing be careful to not let your new puppy catch it. Once he catches it you have just taught it to catch birds and not hold a point.

Trained Gun-dogs

When you pick your dog up You should take him home and do nothing with him for a few days. All that you want to do is bond with him, possibly take him for a walk on a check cord. Give him time to get used to you his new master.

What your new dog can and will do depends on whether it is a started or finished gun dog.

Training for your Hunting Dog

Training for your dog is started out with yard work. Your dog will be taught whoa, come and Kennel command as well as Heal. The first part of training will all be done on a check cord. This enables us to have control and be able to correct any mistakes the dog makes. When the dog is under control in the yard and doing everything right, we move on to the next part of training. This takes about 30 days.

The next step we move to the field work. Your dog is introduced to birds and is taught the same commands in the field with birds. When the pup is pointing and coming back with the check cord attached in the field every time then we move to no check cord and work on all the same commands. This is usually another 30 days depending on your dog. This is a total of 60 days.

Now you have a dog you can hunt. This is not a finished dog but a started gun dog that knows to whoa on command, come when called and will point and hold until birds are flushed.

We do try to get your pup to retrieve if they are a natural Retriever. We also reserve the right to drop any dog from our training program at 30 days if we feel the dog is not going to train out.

Training fees: $400 a month plus the cost of birds due when you drop off your dog and the 1st of every month after till you pick up your dog.

We require that when you drop off your dog that that you have a current vet examination showing that your dog is free of any type of diseases. This ensures the safety of all the dogs in our kennel as well as your dog too.