anyone done gun dog training?

[hatwoman]

I have a lab who retrieved on his first day home. he loves carrying things and is never happier than when chasing and retrieving - more fun than playing with any other dog, including his very best friend who lives across the road. I've taught him to stay when I throw stuff and then retrieve it by smell. he's working line and has quite a few field trial winners and champions among his ancestors. so although I've never shot a thing in my life and am not very into shooting I'm a bit tempted to seek out a class and give it a go. just for fun really. and because I'm pretty sure he'd adore it. anyone else tried it?

I do it with my dog, but very early stages as she is quite young.

At the mo we are doing hunting/quartering training on a long line - teaching her to turn to her name/whistle (two short blasts)sweeping from side. She does it naturally when she is looking for dead stuff to eat, but I need her to do it on command.

Also to happily carry a dummy - trainer recs not to do any retrieving games at her age just give her dummy and recall (on line as she is a pita) and praise her for coming back and not take dummy away.

We are using his whistle commands of one for sit, two for turn, three for come etc.

My dog is too mental really and I think we will end up doing flyball as there is less staying still - I have a Hunt Point Retrieve breed.

are you having classes? and how long are you spending on it? are you incorporating it into normal walks - or is it an additional activity - and therefore additional time? (off to look up quartering...)

We are doing it with ours (or rather, DH is doing it). No classes though as he has done it before. Ours is also still young though. All you need is 5 minutes a day on top of normal exercise and so on

Why don't you try taking him beating? Good beaters and pickers up are always in demand.It is good fun,the people are nice and you'd both get a lot of exercise,and possibly £20 and a brace of pheasant at the end of the day.

If you google NOBS,[National Organisation for Beaters] they would be able to put you in con tact with a local shoot.

here

I have - and still do. I've 3 labs and all of them have been trained to pick up. I only actually work one of them at the moment, we work as pickers up during the shooting season. I don't beat with them because I think there's an entirely different set of skills needed.

When I started, I found a trainer and took my pup (about 5 months old). We immediately started learning to be steady, to walk to heel off lead with perfection, recall to the whistle (again with perfection) and simple short seen retrieves and of course a correct delivery.

We moved on to directional control (left, right, get on and back) and hand signals, the stop whistle and so on.

And then onto jumping on command, many blind retrieves, ongoing stop whistle, and the entire set of commands in the water.

This has been done using a combination of dummies, dummies with rabbit skin covers, dummies with wings wrapped around them and cold game.

The dogs absolutely love it - and it has produced 3 rock solid dogs who can be taken anywhere and are always under complete control. I also love doing it; for me there's nothing in the world as rewarding as actually working with my dogs.

Try your library for books - or look on Amazon, we have some ancient ones which are really good. If your dog is young you need to keep it short and fun and give lots of praise when it's right. It's a bit like training children really.....!

sorry but rofl at NOBS. marvellous.

I looked at the Gundog Club before - and there are some lessons near us. It's a bit annoying though - at first glance it seems like all you can do on the website is actually book the lessons - doesn;t seem to be a number for the local lessons that you can call for a chat. Can't say I'm keen on parting with my money without even talking to someone about it. Someone in the village is training their cocker - don't know them well but next time I see him out walking I might corner him.

just googled quartering...and found this article here. has to be said if this guy is representative of gun dog trainers I might have to give it a miss. The whole tone of the article makes me laugh, but also makes me somewhat wary. Worth a read if anyone's interested.

hatwoman, I met a bloke on our walk yesterday who was trainer his Springer Spaniel. It was only 8 months old and my God it was the most beautifully trained dog. He was flinging the dummy across to the other side of the river and it just sat by his heel in an unflinching and yet totally focused pose. Then it did a beautiful retrieve.

I had to hold myself back from bursting into applause.

I asked him where he was doing classes and he said he was totally self taught from the books. he wasn't even sure if he was going to work the dog but he and the dog just really loved doing the training.

thanks slubber - I think I'll get one of the books (I think there's an "official" series) and start on our own. I've always enjoyed training - in fact I've just realised another similarlity with children - the subconscious division into gender roles. since we got Big Dog dh has always been in charge of games and fun. and I've done most of the training (though obviously these overlap, or they wouldn't work). Although I live in the country, and have a lab, and am not opposed to shooting (how could I be when I eat meat?) I'm not a barbour-wearing country type and am a bit wary of that whole scene - maybe it's prejudice on my part.

I'm not a shooting type person either (and Barbours are frankly rubbish coats - they always smell funny) but there is something really captivating and beautiful watching a dog do what it was bred to do.

I secretly gave my puppy a round of applause yesterday when she headed straight for the river and had a swim. Clever lab.

Joe Irvine (writer of that article) is v popular

We adopted a 19 month old lab today, he has been gun dog trained but needed rehoming as he is scared of guns! He was bred from a long line of trained gun dogs and retrieves dummys beautifully but when he hears gunshots he runs back to his Daddy dog.

Despite his insecurities he is brilliantly trained to stay, walk to heel etc and already seems very comfortable with the DS's so I am hoping that he will make a lovely family pet although we plan to try and keep up his retrieval skills.

luckyblackcat .... do you have a Brittany?!

My dog trainer trains gundogs (although that's not what we're working on with my dog, but I would consider it if I didn't live in London) and I just love him - totally down to earth, sensible, calm. I wish I was half as good as he is (and probably my dog does too).