Flatcoats are smart!

All dogs benefit from basic obedience training as part of their early socialization and flatcoats are no exception.  Obedience training helps establish essential communication and trust between a dog and its owner/handler that carries over to all other activities. Puppy kindergarden and obedience training with flatcoats helps them focus and can help fully realize their genetic legacy as retrievers. Most flatcoats require a very patient approach to training because despite their exuberant enthusiasm they are relatively ‘soft’ dogs and harsh corrections and sometimes even loud shouting can decrease their responsiveness causing them to shut down. Flatcoats are well suited to modern positive reinforcement training methods including clicker training.

Flat-coated retrievers are intelligent dogs that can learn rally maneuvers and obedience exercises quickly. Flatcoats can excel in competitive obedience and rally trials with the standouts regularly achieve scores of 195 (out of 200) and above. The Peter Pan-like qualities of flatcoats and their prolonged adolescence does impact their attention span. Their occasional humorous antics in the ring helps keep their handlers humble and judges amused. Some flatcoat owners delay competitive obedience and rally until their dogs are older, often after winning agility or field titles.

and then sometimes flatcoats just do whatever that want to…