Training with the puppies

This is Barley (with his owner, Trudy) waiting for his turn, Pippa (yes, she's a Toller, not a Golden)with Andrea and our Crispin with the winged bumper. All the puppies came out training yesterday with the big dogs and had a great time learning to fetch up the bumpers, getting some exposure to birds through the wings Mark brought back from his Saskatchewan hunting trip and learning to COME BACK with the bumper. It's great to watch the puppies learn to do stuff that is so fun. We believe very strongly that all the work you do at this stage means so much less work required as the dogs get older. The main thing we teach at this stage isn't that puppy has to pick up the object - it's that once you have the object, the game is to come back with it. If you don't come back, the game is over, but if you do come back, the game continues.