One day Deb and Katelyn Kelley, my wife and my daughter, decided to visit a local breeder and picked out a beautiful yellow lab puppy. She fit right in to the family very quickly. We named her Gracie Bella.
MORE ABOUT GRACIE
As a puppie, Gracie was going to need training. I have attempted to train two other dogs with varying degrees of failure and success; however, these dogs were never put to the test of bird hunting. Our family agreed that Gracie was going to be different. I picked the brains of friends who had pointing breeds, and reread the recommended dog training books by Richard A. Wolters. Thus armed, I set out to train Gracie firmly believing my approach would be successful. It was soon apparent that my intermittent training schedule was not going to work. I needed help.
I found Coyote Creek Retrievers on the web and contacted them. I asked if I could come out and have them “evaluate” my dog for training consideration. I met Jim and Kenny and they made me feel right at home. They explained their training process and listened to my concerns and doubts. With every concern I had, they had a plan and they had no doubts.
Jim ran a client dog, Lola, through some skill sets and I was very impressed with his calm demeanor. Kenny handled the other dogs with a calm voice too, and with a positive attitude he uses everyday.
I still was not totally convinced leaving my dog there was the right thing to do. After all I had just met these guys, and Gracie is family. I took Gracie hunting again and she performed with sporadic enthusiasm and mixed skills. It was clear she had good instincts, but needed training to be a really good hunting dog.
I emailed Kenny with lots of questions. He responded quickly, answering all my questions. I also spoke with Jim again, and he assured me that the more Gracie practiced bad habits, the more they would be reinforced and the more difficult they would be to correct. That’s what pushed me to take her out the following Saturday. I was convinced she needed professional training.
Leaving her was awful. Kenny was ready to take Gracie on and broke my tension with his humor, kidding me about “leaving my girl.” I didn’t want to distract Gracie for the first few weeks, so visiting her was limited by my choice. I think by doing that, it helped keep her focused on her new life style as a retriever. Then I became more involved with Gracie’s training with Kenny training me. Yes, I needed to be trained! For Kenny, this has probably been harder than her force fetch drills!
It has been three months of training now. With every month that Gracie has been at Coyote Creek Retrievers, she has shown so much improvement. Kenny has done a tremendous job from force fetch, backs, to sit-to-shot. I am amazed with what Gracie can now do! When I saw Lola that day months ago doing backs, I thought, “How cool is that, but not my dog.” Now I am thinking, ”Oh yes…my dog!” She has the desire to run 200 yard gunner drills, she loves water retrieves, and on every retrieve she comes back to a heal position, sits, and holds delivering the bird or bumper to hand! I could go on and on, she does push/pull drills, marks, blinds, etc. but you all know what a dog can do with good training.
I can’t say enough about Kenny sharing his time and knowledge. He has changed our life with Gracie, and I now have a true hunting retriever and best friend!