What WAM said, plus a little.

Get a copy of "The 10-Minute Retriever."

Never use an e-collar.

No manual is entirely correct.

My William didn't start retrieving until he wuz a year old.

Then he had it all down in the next three months.

Woofie wuzzn't ready for training until he wuz 4 years old.

Breeding is very important here.

If yo pup's Mom wuz trained, you'll have much less work to do.

The last of my Dad's dawgz wuz from a good family.

Us kidz wuz forbidden to do so much as throw a stick for him until he wus 18 months old.

Then we all hopped in the car and took a couple of dummies and a shotgun and Tar up to the Park, where there were islands close to shore.

He wuz perfect on all the Field Trial stuff right out of the box!

Inherited memory.

It wuz a problem with Bill, because he has 23 Hall-of-Famers in his pedigree.

He inherited training memories from generations of dawgz, beginning with Early English National Champions.

Best not to overwrite any of that.

I have only reinforced a few things thet he did naturally, but he looks like a perfectly-trained dawg!

Sayfu -

Most Dawgz do not respond positively to e-collars.

Most trainers know that any dawg that can be trained with an e-collar can be trained without one.

It certainly is punishment!

Any trainer and psychologist knows thet the principle is pain avoidance.

It requires background in psychology to not ruin a dawg with it.

My Bill has an Altered State that he goes into for protection.

I shocked him and he let me know that he'd rather fight than retrieve anyhow.

Woofie did exactly the opposite.

He quit retrieving and cowered every time he saw the damn thing.

Took months to get him going again.

They are both extremely intelligent.

What they both understood immediately wuz the I SHOCKED THEM!

Lines of dawgz were bred from individuals who seemed to respond positively to the e-collar, and yours is probably descended from them.

But I assure you, this is the exception.

From the standpoint of Mathematical Logic, a statement that is not always true, is logically false.

People who bred dawgz for e-collar compatibility found out that they had bred out intelligence, and the idea has been largely abandoned, compared to the Robodawgz of the 80's.

If you want your dawg to never trust you, be inconsistent with negative reinforcement just one time!

This isn't my first Rodeo.

I took psychology courses as a Pre-Med Major.

And I studied Education Psychology on my way to a Master's Degree in Education.

These are Labradors #8 and 9 for me.

I know where the intelligence came from in the breed, and I hit the vein this time.

Labradors are a 15-year investment, and there is no need taking any risks.

Blackdawgz

I agree with your philosophy on e-collars. My big 'un sometimes gets aggressive with weird people and other big dogs. I only use the e-collar sparingly to correct bad behavior. I cannot have him biting folks either. Put that collar on him and he becomes all business and not much monkey business with others. He has been aggressive since day one.

There was an idiot down in the tide marsh last year shocking his dawg so bad that the dawg was about to turn on him. I laid my gun down so there would be no mixed signals and walked over to him and politely suggested that he should stop shocking that dawg for no damn good reason or get ready for a full-on, five-star, country ass whuppin' that one of us was fixing to get. He did not find humor in that either, but he stopped shocking that dawg.

But I must admit thet it sounds like ye have an aggressive one.

Mine aren't like thet.

Bill's trick is to sneak around behind somebody new and stand up and latch on to their elbow loosely and start humping their leg!

Most folks think it's funny.

In fact they've never bitten an attacker.

They stand shoulder-to-shoulder when attacked and pin the attacker while growling savagely.

It happens so fast that the eye cannot follow it.

They weigh 240 lbs together and they're in great shape from the daily exercise.

But Bill goes into an Altered State.

He imprinted on Drainpipe.

So his pupils dilate and he roars like an African lion and appears to be quite savage.

And he has about the same cool-down period as a tomcat.

But so far, he doesn't bite.

My black dawg humped the lady vet's leg when he was about 8 months old and after she recovered and was talking to me, he peed on her leg. I guess he figured if he couldn't hump, then pi$$ on it.

I was hit like shock and awe and could not even speak. She said that had happened to her twice, both Labs!

maybe get him used to the gun report by shooting a .22(shorts or cb's) then progress to the big bangs?

My wife is a professional trainer, she does not ever use e collars. they are only used for negative reinforcement, which works counter-productive to how a dog learns. Positive reinforcement (food/ play/ ect.) is the fastest way to teach a dog something.

You can teach a dog with an e collar, but it is not the best way.