Hello all,

I posted here a while back and got such awesome help from everyone, thank you! Quick update, I have a black lab puppy, who is now 5 months old and 40 lbs. Since I found this site I stop vaccinating him (he had his first 2 puppy shots), and I switched him to high quality kibble (Eagle Holistic). I have thoughts of raw but haven't had time to do the research yet (I'm a graduate student, not too much time or money!).

So, I guess my question is more of a request for suggestions... Remington has very high drive (food and prey) and I want to make sure that I can handle him as he gets bigger. He will be a hunting dog, but we want him to be a house dog as well. He is incredibly smart and has really learned a lot of commands quickly. He is easily bored, and his favorite toy is the food cube (sold on the leerburg site), but that is a very far second to any fetching bumpers or bird wings, these he FREAKS over! I don't want to ruin his drive, but I also want him to be able to control it and not bite my hands when I have a toy or jump up on me when I am holding a bird. So, is it too early to try to teach him not to do these things, or will that hurt his drive for those things?
(Side question.. Is this covered in the Building Drive & Focus DVD? I will not be teaching Remington to bite or do much tugging with him besides play, if at all, but want to develop his focus for hunting without giving in to the "force fetching" school of thought. Does anyone on here have thoughts on this?)

Also (sorry this is long, but it's all related I think), what do you guys do in the time you are not training... We keep our training sessions short, only 1-3 mins at a time and do some playing before and after. But there is a lot of time in the day that we need to make meals or do something other than be actively playing/training with him. During those times, what do you guys do? I want him to have drive, but also be able to 'turn it off' so to speak and be able to chill out and do his own thing while we do other things. Is that possible for a puppy this young?

Thanks for any suggestions!
Meghan