Cold Game Gundog Training Lesson with 2 Springer Spaniels.

It was great to get out today with Sheila and her two Springer Spaniels, Ronnie and Reggie, accompanied by Luke the black Flatcoat Retriever, who’s currently with me for residential gundog training.

The aim of today’s pre-season training was to sharpen up the skills already learnt by the three boys, whilst introducing them to cold game retrieves for the first time, and what a great job they all did!

Ronnie and Luke began the session.  Sheila and I focussed on keeping our dogs nice and steady as the other went out for the retrieve.  Ronnie, with lots of encouragement, worked extremely well, and we saw some lovely deliveries to hand.  Both boys were nice and focussed, not only with their retrieves but also with their directional commands and quartering, all of which are of upmost importance when taking your dog out on a shoot.

Then along came Reggie!  This little guy is great on the stop whistle and biddable but not quite as eager to work as his brother, Ronnie.  He has a very strong desire to free hunt and this is something that Sheila has to rein in.  We are currently working on rectifying this by getting Reggie to focus more on Sheila when he’s quartering.

Overall a great day had at my new training grounds and I look forward to more sessions with the Krays!

Posted: November 7, 2013