Gundog Training day – Bawdsey shoot
As some of you will have read we have recently finished the Grade 1 and 2 Gundog tests, in order to progress with Autumn we have a series of 1 to 1 lessons, along with joint lessons with our other cocker Busby.
The next stage for the training is to prepare Autumn for working next season, in order to do this we have joined the Seadogs off season training sessions, these happen once a month and run training as a simulated shoot day.
During our lessons we have introduced Autumn to the starter pistol so she has begun to learn the stop whistle, drop to shot and patience for the retrievals when they are not hers, we have also started with more highly scented ground for hunting, Autumn is a natural hunter and uses the air to wind dummies from quite a distance without the need for extra instruction.
We covered hunting, retrieving and picking up scenarios during the main part of the day, one problem I am having at the moment with Autumn is because she is a natural hunter and will wind things herself she has been given more leeway for hunting a little further away, which up until now has not been a problem but the last few times she has got a little confident and moved to far away and hunting on her own.
I am having to learn that fine line between when she is working for me and working for herself and once she is working for herself getting her back to me quicker than she currently does, this is something for me to work on over the closed season.
Having said this, she is very good at the stop whistle when the gun goes off, she retrieves well and is very eager to please so correction only takes a couple of times and she has got it, I was very pleased with 2 areas over the days training, one was her directional and the other her water work.
During the hunting in the morning, we put down a dummy, which she had not seen go down, it was slightly out of the hunting area, the track by the field, Autumn was hunting for the dummy, in long undergrowth, we have not until now done any directional but I felt she might go the right way if I put my hand out as I do when I hunt her and want her somewhere else, so I put my arm out straight to the right, she hopped up in the air looking at me and saw my direction, within a short time, she had picked the dummy and retrieved it to hand. Our second success was the water retrieve, she has until now only gone into water up to her knee joints and no further, so we knew she would need encouragement to get into the water, to begin with we put a dummy on the bank opposite so she was keen to retrieve, she was a little hesitant to get in so we placed a dummy in the water within her reach, she moved to retrieve it but pushed it out further so she had to swim, she retrieved the dummy and came out the other side, she then started to squeak because she realised she was not the same side as me, but with a little encouragement she got back into the water and delivered the dummy to hand.
The day was really good for me, she was not the worst behaved despite being one of the youngest taking part but also areas to work on, stop whistle without shot, come back whistle, hunting whistle and my voice tone when she has ‘lost her head’ all in time for next month’s training
(Note from BarleyCourt Spaniels: Thank you to Heather Bradbury for her kind permission to use her fabulous photographs)
