Thanks guys. I'm not rushing into things by any means! She can have a very unordinary long registered name, but she needs a good "call" name. "Cal" was California Dreamin'.
Cisco, most of the commands will be made with a
Spaniel whistle The only voice commands in the field would be the dog's name to tell it to retrieve the bird, hup, here, over, and back. The last 3 are also used in conjunction with hand signals.
If the dog is trained well, you will only hear an occasional beep on the whistle (if at all) and the dog's name called for the retrieve. Not having to give any commands usually means that the dog is really, really trained, or the trainer doesn't have a clue as to what's going on and is hoping that the dog will carry the day.
Out of the field, the sky is the limit. A short list of the words that my dogs knew is: inside, outside, upstairs, downstairs, bone, ball, toy, kennel, hurry up (potty on command), O.K., leave it, no bird, give, here, hup, heel, lay down, put your head down, and of course NO. Cal would only retrieve if his name was called. He wouldn't go if someone (even me) yelled "Carl", "Cat", or any other name except his. "Carlos" would cause him to take a step or 2 but he'd stop as soon as he heard the 2nd syllable. (Then he'd look at me as if to say "Why the .ell did you do that?")
One beep on the whistle was hup, two beeps means turn the other way, 3 beeps means "here", 5 beeps means "quit what you're doing right now and get your .ss over here RIGHT NOW!"
She's already starting to learn that the hand with the palm facing her and down at my right side means "here".
It'd be a whole lot easier with a trained dog listening to the commands so she'd see what that "noise" meant. I've been told "your dogs mind you better than my kids mind me."
