Autumns Gundog Training Day At Campsea Ash Shoot
Gundog Training day – Campsea Ash shoot
Today was the first time in 5 weeks I was going to do any training with Autumn other than Heel work due to her having been in Season, so I had no idea what she would work like, if she would still have ‘lost’ her head, so my expectations where not going to be to her normal high level – got to give her a little break right?
So the first thing we did was standing in a line a simple mid length retrieve, straight out and straight back, Autumn’s retrieve had the added interest of a dummy bag near the dummy she was to retrieve, but she went straight out, had a look at the bag, which I told her to leave and she picked up the dummy and returned to me, she did have a little walk around to show people she had got it, but not too far and when I corrected her she came back and delivered to hand, the next longer retrieve was even better and no walking round on the return.
Over the last few months I have been working on the return speed of Autumn when she retrieves, she is so quick that she runs into me which can cause her to lose the dummy, so before she went into Season we had been doing retrieves on a hill, to slow her down and also saying Steady as she comes back in, this seems to have had some affect as she did not knock into me once during the day – not bad for doing nothing for 5 weeks, so happy with that.
Next we moved on retrieves in and over water, last training day was the first time Autumn had been in water and swam, she needed a little encouragement to go in the water but she swam out for the first dummy, squeaking all the time, we then threw one on the other side of the ditch, her marking on this was not as good as she normally does, she swam in the ditch searching for it, my trainer said to not worry as water is a big distraction and it might have gone too far for her, so we put another right on the bank of the water, she very quickly found it and then returned it to hand, she likes the water but all the time squeaking, which is very endearing and hard to keep a straight face whilst working her but she does it very well.
As many of you know we have a second cocker Busby, who is just under 3, he has been training since he was 1 and so he is a little further along with his training but because we want to work both dogs in the same shoot we have been having lessons to work the dogs side by side and today was no exception, there were two dummies and tennis ball in the water, we lined both the dogs up and sent them for a retrieve, this was a really good exercise, it was the closest we had worked them together and never in the water, Busby got the first dummy, which Autumn wanted to take, but I stopped her and called her back in, we then sent Autumn for the next dummy and as she swam back we sent Busby, it was really nice working them together and showing you can have control over the right dog by the right handler, all dummies were delivered to hand too.
After lunch we did long water retrieves in a lake using a dummy launcher, this would have been the furthest Autumn had swam, she did very well, very keen to go in and marked the dummy well, she went out and at first picked up a piece of wood, she started to turn round and realised it was not a dummy so dropped it, I then gave her a command of ‘Go Back’ she then swam further out to the dummy and returned it to hand – very pleased with this.
We tried a slightly longer retrieve on the water but it went a little too far for her, but it was still good as it gave me an idea of how far she can swim, she marked it well, she knew exactly where it was and also control of getting her back to me even without finding the item you want them too, Paul then sent Busby as a ‘Go Back’.
We have some areas to work on, continuing to work on the delivery to hand, teaching her the hunt whistle, stop whistle out in the field and working both our dogs side by side, but as I said at the beginning I had no idea how well Autumn would do on this training day, so I went with a very open mind and mid-level expectations, not only did Autumn meet the expectations but she exceeded them, little by little she is improving and beginning to show what a good little worker she will be on the shooting field, a good day all round – roll on the next one ;-)
(Note from BarleyCourt Spaniels; Thank you to Finnamore Photography for allowing us to use your fabulous photo's!)
