Got a prize 1 on our NA test. Now what?
I'm a first time dog owner, late-onset hunter, and first time bird dog trainer. Recently ran my pup in our local NAVDHA chapter's NA test, and scored a prize 1 (woohoo!). Super proud of our little guy.
I wasn't planning on testing higher than this, but I wound up really enjoying the training process - having very specific things to train towards made me a much better handler in a short period of time, and also gave us some clear goals with the pup. The local NAVDHA chapter was also full of great advice in the few months leading up to testing. Pup progressed a ton in a short period of time, so now I'm thinking that the gun dog test might be in our future. Here's where I'd say we're at:
drive/nose/general willingness to hunt hard: 11/10
steadiness: 3/10 (he caught several bad flyers during the test...)
water: 3/10
obedience in the presence of birds: 2/10
obedience not in the presence of birds: 8.5/10
What would your next steps be? How would you structure the next phase of training? I just ordered a bird launcher and have some ideas on how to work on steadiness, but I'm curious as to how the crowd thinks about progression at this stage. I like having many opinions to work with! Give me your (solicited) two cents!