What exactly is a water dog? As far as duck hunters are concerned, a water dog is basically a trained retriever that is capable of retrieving downed or crippled ducks and geese in the water. Most but not all duck hunts take place over some type of wetland, pond, lake, flooded field, or marsh. It is very important that a trained duck hunting dog be a capable swimmer who is confident and secure in his abilities in each of these situations. A water dog must be able to hunt out of a boat, hunt off of a dog stand in the water and hunt out of various types of duck blinds. Some of these hunting structures are built with ramps or ladders leading to the water. This dog should be able to navigate through decoys in the water without any hesitation. He must be able to sit in the aforementioned blinds calmly yet alert while waiting for ducks to come in. His obedience should be impeccable and he should be a welcome party on any duck hunt. A water dog will aid tremendously in the recovery of birds and will, more times than not, find birds that would have otherwise been lost.
While this type of dog might be referred to as a water dog, he should be equally capable on land as well. This will allow him to hunt grain fields for ducks and geese as well as hunt pheasant and dove along with many other game birds. At DuckDogTrainer.com, we have a program designed to produce incredible, dependable, and desirable water dogs! We offer two levels of training. The first level is the “Basic Duck Hunter” and the second is the “Advanced Duck Hunter.” After training dogs through these levels, we then have the dogs perform before a panel of trained judges to earn the designations of either: Certified Duck Dog or Certified Duck Hunting Champion.
This is only for dogs who have completed our basic program and show the qualities necessary to be a champion duck hunter. This dog will be taught to honor another dog hunting, hunt from a location that is away from the duck blind and hunters “remote”, and to effectively cooperate with his handler to run blind retrieves to recover ducks that it did not see. This will be done with whistles and hand signals. After completing this segment of training and being observed in compliance by our judges this dog will be given the designation of Duck Hunting Champion. This is the “cream of the crop water dog” who will be extremely efficient in game recovery. Keep in mind that not all dogs are able to attain this level and those that do, are truly special water dogs.