Boomers Training (the outcome of I FOUND A DOG)

ok fellas. as most of you know, i found a dog a couple weeks ago and never found the owners. hes now my huntin buddy and is being trained as we speak. heres a lil overview of what were working on and wat he already knows. keep in mind hes only 11 wks old. any input for new commands or anything of the sort will be most graciously accepted as this is my first lab and first time training a gun dog.

ok, so with about a weeks worth of work, he is making complete retrieves of about twenty yards and returns back to my feet. he is starting to go on command, but it needs A LOT of work. we started trying short, simple blind retrieves today using hand signals.

he works very well in the fifteen minute sessions we are working in, it just depends on what kind of mood hes in. im not going to push him too hard as hes still a puppy and he just loses interest quickly. i will be getting a whistle asap seeing as how he responds to that much better than my voice as far as getting his attention when hes distracted by something. i dont plan on buying an e collar because ive seen too many good dogs ruined with them. i realize thats the operators error but i dont want that thing to be there to mess anything up seeing as how im trying to prove my grandfather wrong about the dog being able to hunt in the first place. the only problem i see right now is he has separation anxiety and deals with it by barking. it usually stops within five or ten minutes, but i dont want it to last that long or even occur at all for that matter. any advice on stopping this before its beyond fixing? and any other retrieves you guys think he needs to be working on would help tremendously. thanks :thumbsup: