Today our 11-month-old male Strider came home with us. He spent the past 3 months with Rich Mendendez at Red Sky Retrievers, LLC in Moses Lake, WA. We are very pleased with the progress Rich has made with Strider in that short time. I started Strider from the time we brought him home as a 7-week-old puppy; I utilized Bill Hillmann's Training a Retriever Puppy method, and then at 8-months-old we sent him to be with Rich for his basics, which included collar conditioning, the conditioned retrieve, pile work, and early handling. He also learned to do doubles, walk-ups, and diversion birds while he was with Rich. In addition, he is steady to shot. He learned a tremendous amount.
Yesterday, we spent an entire day training on marks and walk-ups in the sage brush near Rich's home and then today we went to the football field and Rich let us run Strider on the Double T, which is a foundational handling drill. It is the last step of Lardy's basics program (besides Swim-by, which is in the water). Right now it is too cold for swim-by, so we will continue where Rich left off and soon begin walk-out blinds and 3-legged pattern blinds. We are very happy with the outcome and would not hesitate to send Strider to Rich again. I would highly recommend Rich if you are looking for a place to send your dog for retriever training, whether it be for hunting, hunt tests, or just a general obedience tune-up. It only takes but a few minutes spent training with Rich to see his love and passion for the dogs. He takes very good care of the dogs and was very good about communicating with us about Strider throughout the process. We look forward to seeing what the future has in store for Strider, and will continue to post updates about his progress this year. We also will post video footage taken from the weekend spent training with Rich. I hope you all had a beautiful weekend with your dogs! Until next time...
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