This year, I made a promise to myself that I was going to take some time out from teaching and put that time into my own dogs. Having a young dog that I bred myself, who is very different to her mother, I was keen to get input from experienced gundog people about how to take her to the next level.
My training summer began with a 5 hour drive up to Scotland for a week of training through some very challenging terrain with some very well thought out setups. At this point, Jager was only 11 months old, albeit still very keen and willing. I split the days between Jager and Delta (5 years old) and watched both of them come on in leaps and bounds. My forever challenge with Delta is convincing her that I do indeed know what I’m doing when I blow the stop whistle and step into help her (which seems hard to believe as I listen to her snoring whilst I write). For Jager, this week was more about exposing her to different pieces of ground and testing her mental stamina. One thing that stood out for me is that Jager is a good hunter, but a lazy marker. This week away showed up some of the cracks in my training, and helped me tweak my training plan to improve those weaknesses.
Between Scotland and my next training adventure, Jager and I entered the NGRA breed puppy test at Roan Lodge. We were very pleased to walk away with a first, the tests set challenged all of our basic training with a few more tricky twists thrown in.
Next adventure, we trucked off down to Oxford for 3 days, and gosh was it HOT! But with plenty of access to shade and water, keeping a close eye on our dogs, we cracked on. I find training with people who are better that me very inspiring. Keeping those pearls of wisdom, that have been tried and tested, applying them to mine and my client’s dogs to keep progressing. Delta was injured after standing on a black thorn, so this was all down to Jager. I genuinely believe that our week in Scotland really set her up for these three days. Although the ground was different (more rolling hills in meadow grass fields), she held her own along older and more experienced dogs. My stand out take-away from this training minibreak was that Jager is very good at taking a line off the arm and she has a brilliant memory. Something I have spend a lot of time on, doing circular blinds with my Muntjac half PCV 1lb dummies. Being able to phase out the white PVC strip really helped her lock on to where I was pointing. My ‘things to work on’ list didn’t necessarily get bigger, it just changed. Her marking had improved, but now I needed to work on running through old falls.
Using my orange snipe dummies, I could create a small, but well scented area, and because of the colour, my dogs could not rely on sight to find the snipes dummies. When I teach hunting, I always use red and orange snipes, as to the dog, they appear the same colour as the grass. In conjunction with this, using my target dummies to create a visible target for my dog to lock onto after a find in the hunting area.
Our 3rd and final trip of the summer was down to Sussex. Having a dreadful sense of direction, I hadn’t really appreciated quite how far away Sussex was from the Lancashire/Cumbria boarder. I divided up the journey by staying with a lovely friend in Warwickshire, before battle took place with the M25, something I shan’t be doing again in a hurry! We had 2 days of training, on some beautifully varied ground, in heather, woodland, bracken, over fences and various bits of water. This felt like the big finale to my summer. All of the advice given to me, the time and effort I’d put in to tweaking my plan and training our weaknesses was going to be put to the test. Day 1 saw a lot of work in cover. Although Jager’s marking into cover wasn’t brilliant, she held an area, hunted hard and picked every time. Cue another amendment to the plan! The afternoon brought water, and Delta. Delta is fast and stylish, albeit sometimes self employed and hit and miss on the breaks. Water is one of her favourite things to do. This also means that any distraction on water, when we’re trying to pick a blind on land, can be a bit of a battle. The battle was won; the blind was picked and then she got to shine on the water. Day 2 was surreal. 2 fences in heather, memories, delayed marks and running through old falls… I decided it would be sensible to go forward and show Jager the fences to begin with. I wanted her to use her brain for the important stuff, such as marking, handling, and hunting, not how to negotiate a barrier. We had a mark in a bed of heather over the two fences to begin with. Then we had memories in that area, and mark between the two fences and another memory area of to the right. We ran in threes, dog one took the memory on the right, two took the blind between the fences, and three took the memory in the heather over the two fences. Round 1, I was the first dog to go for the memories on the right. Fortunately, there were plenty on retrieves down assuring that Jager got a quick pick after taking a successful line with a distraction. Round 2, we were going for the memory over the two barriers. This retrieve made my summer. I sent her out with quite a high cast out, I wanted her to look past the area where the mark had just been picked. She took a lovely line, she approached the old fall and her head twitched to the right which was where the mark has been, and she kept going. No driving cue, no handling, no intervention from me at all. Over the moon that our training had shown to be working.
Having the chance to train under and run alongside seasoned trailers and A panels judges is a real honour. To surround myself with people who are truly inspiring and have such a deep understanding of their dogs and the gundog world is and opportunity I couldn’t afford to miss. I urge anyone who wants to go further, train with people who are better than you, that way you are only going to go upwards. I will never forget the summer I decided to put my dogs first.
