Leia had a very quick follow up heat! We planned to have a litter on her next heat, we just didn’t expect her next heat to be a month later!

She delivered the 23'rd!

Good thing for our lifestyle… these pups will be absolutely ready for the field this fall!

I believe I have contacted the wait list, but if you wanted to be on it and haven’t heard from me, please send me a message!

I will be tracking their progress and updating.

They will have…

Dew claws removed,
ENS Therapy,
Several wormings,
First and second immunizations,
Food dish manners,
Gate manners,
Jump up manners,
Sit and hold disciplines,
Bark manners,
And they’ll be ready to be or be started on several other disciplines, ready for you to take over. They’ll be listening!

AKC applications, Sire OFA Normal Elbows, Excellent hips, AKC DNA Registry, 18 blings on his 5 generation pedigree. Dam OFA Normal Elbows, Excellent Hips, Some pointing labs in her pedigree, but no natural signals of it (could probably be trained.) Both excellent individual and many generation health track record.

If you’re new to our STARTED pups, feel free to contact me for more info.

Check the rainshadowlabradors.com website for video links showing the whelping process I'm developing.

Thanks!

Pic of the “pile” last night…

Still working thru the callback list, 4 of these are reserved already

Got the dew claws removed last night with no issues. Fat squirmy little black butterballs!


Been crazy around here, baby goats born less than 2 days after we got mamma… they had no idea when she was due. Got a couple NICE pieces of damascus out of the forge too. Hoping l’m keeping accurate notes throughout….

…. 2 girls and one boy left, guys!!!

2 girls left...

We got a pup from Steve last summer. Ruby has been great. Calm mannered but still a puppy! Very birdy. Insane bird drive actually.

And if you worry about if they’re tough, don’t. I’ve had her out this past week dummy training everyday at -56 F. Doesn’t phase her…Of course the sessions are short but she’s eager to go. 30 below is no problem at all. Take her out for an hour roaming around and she’s fine. No jacket no booties. And still ready to go when it’s time to go inside.

Ruby showed up with good manners and well started. Steve was great to work with picking a pup out for us and went above and beyond taking care of shipping her up here.

If you’re looking for a lab you should talk to to Steve

Thanks Trapper. Great to hear how well you're doing with her!

One girl remaining…

All pups are reserved!

Always enjoy your videos. It would be great to hear about some of the pups development after they leave the litter.

I get a few stories back on the FB page. Really encouraging to see people who take a pup that's been prepared to train, and run with it, and really make something special out of them! Even if it's just a well mannered pet.

I tell everyone who leave here with a pup, "You can lose it in a few days! Just let the pup do what it wants all the time and it will try to take over, and you'll have lost everything I built. But if you take over from here, and put yourself in charge, the sky is the limit!"

I've seen both happen!

All these puppies are reserved, this is just a progress report…

Gonna try to edit together a video, but…

Amazing success!!!

Decided to start the “Back” training yesterday with the teakettle flip. Planned, and strategically located, I put the food behind me, block the road, and anyone who charges me gets flipped head-over-teakettle back, while I repeat the word “BACK” over and over.

(“Back” is an extremely useful command that can be applied to MANY scenarios. It means, back up, back away, give some space, leave that alone, or later in the field it means go further away from me. You can even use it to send a dog out on a search or a retrieve.)

Well, yesterday I set up, started, and gave “back” commands and teakettle flips for SIX SOLID MINUTES!!! A few pups took longer to submit than others, (I have video I’ll be trying to edit into an instructional video) but I flipped and said “back” until they all gave up.

Today… same EXACT scenario, I got ready for a battle of wills, and……… I was hesitantly challenged by a couple pups once, maybe twice, then they submitted like the rest of the pack… SECONDS! Only a few SECONDS!!!

They’re listening!

These babies are amazing!

Pic of less than 20 seconds into today’s session…

Another update, on these (claimed) pups…


I know some of you were wondering when they’d learn about the gate, well that was about 4 days before this video.

Last puppy was waiting for her ride in a couple days, so I used her in the meantime to make some video on taking your puppy home for the first time...



After that video, I did a quick series that culminated with a COMPLETE leash training session, from first sight of the leash, to leading at heel.

The next to the last video is a little tedious, but I didn’t want to cut it down any more because I wanted new puppy owners to see the WHOLE process from start to finish.

(I cut a few of the side videos out of it, but it really shows the whole process …WIN!)

They’re on my YouTube page but I’ll post them here.

Expectations…




The Leash’s job…




How to call an untrained puppy…




Here’s the big FIRST leash session!

Beginning to WIN!




Follow-up session, reinforcing what she learned during the breakthrough…





These steps are followed by more reinforcement and flow seamlessly into teaching “Kennel” and sitting her down, walking to the end if a check cord and teaching “Come” and then those flow into incorporating fetching and other more advanced disciplines.

They all springboard off of each other. But they all start with the leash.

I couldn’t show any of the next steps with this puppy because she needed more drilling and she was desperate to bond after these sessions, so I had to just leave her to her new owners.
(Un-bonding is one of the hardest things that can happen to a pup.)