About Peak Performance Training

Peak Performance runs retriever and gun dog training on County Route 8 in Chaumont, on the bay west of Watertown. The business has three arms – Labrador breeding, boarding and training. Its own description is building well-rounded dogs that excel in hunting, fieldwork and obedience.

Programs

Training starts with a Basic Retrieving Course with a three-month minimum. The published curriculum covers obedience training to reinforce and build on basic skills, delivery to hand using the ear-pinch method for force-fetching, a field evaluation to identify marking, hunting drive and desire, hunting exposure to pigeons and ducks, gunshots, decoys and basic hunting scenarios, and retrieving practice on land and water. Advanced training runs month-to-month for dogs past that stage, covering marking at fifty yards and beyond, retrieving crippled birds on land and water, and casting drills. The program takes dogs from six months old.

How many dogs

The site says it takes a limited number of dogs for training at a time so that each one gets ample time daily – worth knowing if you are planning around a hunting season, because it means availability is genuinely finite.

After the program

Owners are sent home with homework: videos the business produced and written instructions on how to teach and maintain the dog's obedience through repetition.