Going to try and summarize some of the questions asked...
Yes he's a lab.
He honestly has been a pretty darn near perfect dog... he flips the switch from lazy house dog to hunting companion pretty quickly... I don't ever see him getting out of control... I would see him looking at me and saying "screw you dad you go get that bird across that freezing river" before I could see myself having an out of control dog ha.
He's coming along pretty will retrieving... marking singels with ease... water retrieves and field. Havne't started anything blind yet. Haven't started any e-colloar yet.
He's very obedient. We have Sit, Stay, Here, Release down pat. Still gets a little squirly on Hell as I'm not too picky as long as he's within my reach I let it slide.
My personality is very laid back. I rarely get mad or down. And even a bad day of training is still fun cause I love this dog. So I don't see myself getting frustrated. I could honestly see myself being a little too easy going and not strict enough.
I have access to birds about 30 minutes away. We don't have the facilities to house our own birds although I wish we did. $5/quail will get a little pricey but i'll survive. Might be able to work out a bulk discount if I buy a decent amount throughout the year. It looks online like pigeons are cheaper... is there a benefit to using quail vs pigeons? We've dove hunted a couple times already this year and he's done pretty good. Pretty soft mouth. Can I just freeze dead birds that we hunt? Is that a no no for some reason? Obviously live birds are needed for upland work but for retrieving and scent tracking dead birds would work, right?
it's jsut the wife and I. No kids. I work on the road a few days a week and work from home rest. Fall gets a little crazy with other hunting and football games, but after Thanksgiving things slow down.
Worst case scenario... lets say I don't do a very good job this fall and winter and we're goign into spring with a very average dog... he would be 1 year old then... could I still send him to the trainer at that point and hopefulyl they could fix some bad habits and correct some things? Don't foresee that happening... but just would like to be able to halfway save him if he wasn't responding to the things I was doing.
Thanks guys
Did you specifically purchase a pointing lab? It was on your list so I am just asking.
I am not saying you have to but most retriever folks use 3 basic OB commands. Sit, Here, & Heal. Sit means sit until I command otherwise. Most guys release marks on the dogs name and blinds on the word back. Works well if you have multiple dogs hunting to release on name.
Look into the books I recommended. I would get Smartfetch first, it will get you through Force Fetching and then Smart Works 1. These two books should get you through Senior work.