I was on another forum and is it true that you should get a working lab/retriever at 6 weeks?

Cause my neighbour got there's at 8 weeks and that was the earliest... Well anyhow this person (on another forum) was told at 7 weeks they go through a pecking order so better to get them at 6 weeks, and u want them early to make a hunter out of them, if u leave them till 7-8 weeks they either become a wall flower or a bully and are hard to train later, if left till 8 weeks then they go through the scared age by then...This is the reason why they got him at 6 weeks. Does this make sense? I have never heard that in my life....the pecking order would be them learning how to play properly with their siblings. Just sounded funny to me :(

I think this shows that some people need to update their knowledge on dog behaviour. I've never had problems training dogs of any age. They will either be a good worker or not and they would have picked up their abilities from their parents and then be guided by ourselves to channel that ability where we want it!!

Jesse

Total twaddle.  In fact 7 - 8 weeks is generally thought to be the best time to get a puppy from most breeds.  Trainability has nothing to do with age but the dog and the ability of the trainer :D  If dogs are hunters and you want to enhance their skill it matters not what age you get them!

7 weeks I've always been told.  Training can be done at any age, I'm in the process of training a 6year old dog to retrieve.  Got as far as picking the thing up but no luck yet on bringing it back but persevering.

You might have more luck if you back chain the training.  Get him to retrieve it from your hands whilst sitting in front of you, then from your hand out to the left and right etc and then gradually lower it until he will take it from the floor before you start moving/throwing it further from you.  This way the dog always knows how it is supposed to finish :D

Just a thought

Thats what I thought :( pretty sad that people actually believe this :(