Group Gundog Training, Preston, Lancashire.

A wet day at Group Gundog Training.

Today was the start of the 4 week advanced group gundog training course which despite the horrendous weather attracted a great turn out.  With the 2013 shooting season drawing closer, the training has a clear focus on ensuring that all the dogs are able to perform in the field and put into practise what they have been trained to do over the previous months.

Working a dog in a group enables the handlers to ensure that their dogs are 100% steady.  Steadiness is vital for any working dog especially when out in the shooting field.  During today’s session we worked on marked and unmarked retrieves, making use of medium height grass terrain.  The ground on which I choose to train is an important aspect to training and can often have distractions such as additional scent, animals and other people.  Despite the fact that the dogs were already being challenged, the distance control required from the dogs came with further difficulties as we battled the heavy rain and strong winds.

Everybody in the group excelled today and it was great to see some of the achievements that handlers made.  This was particularly evident from Luke, the Flatcoat Retriever who showed his true potential with his distance control and his capabilities with retrieval work.  Many months ago, this wasn’t achievable with Luke on his own and now he is working well in a group, certainly something that his owner, Gayle should be proud of.  Reggie, the Springer Spaniel also showed us how through regular gundog training lessons and some residential gundog training, he is going to be a great asset to Sheila out in the shooting field.

I am certainly looking forward to next weeks training as I introduce further challenges to the group.  In addition to the skills learnt at this weeks lesson, next week will include the use of dummy launchers and further distance control.  Well done everyone and don’t forget to keep training!!

Posted: August 17, 2013