"Already Pointin"

Well, I couldnt resist the temptation to pull out the ole wing and string. After chasing it around a bit with no success he finally figured it out...or should I say, his genetics took over. I have been working with Hank in the yard three times a day,morning, early afternoon and evening, for about ten minutes at a time or until he loses interest. I have been focusing on essential commands like "come" and "fetch" the latter of the two taking more patience on my part. I read somewhere that the best way to introduce a pup to "fetch" is to do the drill in a small confined area so the pup has nowhere else to go but back to you. It works and I am always sure to praise him when he returns to me. Its a bit more difficult in the yard because he seems more interested in chewing on grass and sniffing out dead bird carcasses that the cats had discarded. Its amazing how he can find one, we leave it, go inside and come out a couple hours later and he goes straight to it. I decided to try to trick him and move it ten or so feet. Didnt take long for him to put that drahthaar nose to work and locate it. What an amazing breed! Another thing I have been doing a couple times a day is waiting until he is distracted with something and then hiding behind a tree, when he realizes I am out of his sight he starts to whine and look around a whole lot, I make sure that part of my body is visible, so when he finally locates me he runs and I incorporate the "come" command and praise him a bunch. One thing I am having a bit of an issue with is crate training, I know it takes patience and I have now started feeding him in his crate so he associates it with a good experience, but the second that door closes he starts to whine even though I am right outside the crate. I have read that pups sometimes suffer from seperation anxiety which makes sense to me so I am trying to be as careful as possible so I do not cause any negative effects. I have also read that you should let him go in the crate voluntarily and then close the door and let him bark it out. I tried this and almost a half hour later, still barking so there was no way for me to wait till he stopped barking and let him out as a reward. I guess this one will take some more patience and persistence. Thanks for the resources Chazz! Other than the crate deal, Hank is already performing past my expectations and amazes me all the time. He is very playful and as far as I can see is adapting to his new environment very well. He sleeps on the bed with me by reccomendation of Lona and Gene and also do to the crate training issues. He wakes me up when its time to go outside, now I have to train him to let me know when its time during the day and off of the bed. He hasnt had a #2 accident inside yet(fingers crossed) and so it has been very easy to praise him when he does it outside but I have realized that if we are already outside and he goes then he will not associate the praise with his actions as much as if we were inside and he started to look for a place and then I were to take him outside to go and return back inside promptly. But there is no way for me to avoid this. It is deffinitely a process and something I as a trainer will have to deal with in order to have an indoor dog. Well until next time.